The First Law of Thermodynamics
by TheEdwardz
Summary: A story centered on Toma and Mikoto. Where do espers get their energy from? How does a railgun really work? How will these two deal with a mysterious ability-stealing figure from the past? Find out here!
1. The First Law of Thermodynamics

_The First Law of Thermodynamics states:_

_"__There is a state function E, called 'energy', whose differential equals the work exchanged with the surroundings during an adiabatic process.__"_

_In other words, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another._

TŌMA TILTED HIS HEAD back and stared at the ceiling, resigned from his studies.

He recalled Biribiri and her electrical abilities. He pictured the bridge where they met for the first time, the metallic smell in the air of cold steel. She tossed the coin in the air and flicked it past him at three times the speed of sound.

"Her electricity," he started to himself, "Where does that all come from?"

He scribbled some calculations in the margins of the textbook. A coin weighs about six grams. Multiply that by velocity – 1020 m/s – squared, becomes 1,040,400 m2/s2. Multiply that with the mass and divide by two to get kinetic energy – 3121.2 joules. That's more than the energy of a bullet from a hunting rifle. And don't forget that that's only the energy of the coin and not the electric field she used to propel it in the first place!

Tōma fingered the pages of his physics textbook and glanced outside. The last strings of sunlight hung in the sky like Christmas lights in February. Gray clouds rolled in from the horizon in anticipation of rain. He wondered if Biribiri could call a thunderstorm if she wanted to.

He needed help on his physics exam tomorrow. Only thermodynamics stood between him and a good grade on the test, but Tōma was lost in the pages. Concept after concept picked up, scanned, and then dropped, never absorbed. After an hour of reading, he still had no idea how to calculate the temperature of a cold reservoir in a Carnot engine.

He sighed and dialed the number and lifted the phone to his ear with his right hand.

"Biribiri, can we meet at the library? I need help with something."

"Tōma?" said Biribiri, "Isn't it going to rain soon?"

He switched the phone to his left hand. "No, I don't think so."

The sky was overcast by the time Tōma arrived at the library. He spotted Biribiri leaning against the door outside.

"Hey, Biribiri!" said Tōma as he waved.

She glanced up and swung her hair into the air, suspended. "How many times do I have to tell you? It's Misaka Mikoto." Mikoto shot him an annoyed look and crossed her arms. "So what did you make me come out here for this time?"

Tōma sheepishly produced his physics textbook and constructed a weak smile. "Thermodynamics," he said.

"Oh," she said in surprise, "Compared to the other things you're involved in, this request is abnormally … normal." She reciprocated his smile with her own. This was the first time he'd seen her wear a smile since last week.

They entered the library to find a quiet horde of students eating away at mathematics and Japanese history. The grand space lay before them adorned with Victorian furniture, Persian carpets, good manners. Old books lined the walls, and the shelves penetrated up from the first floor through the rest of the five story complex. A few students looked up to find Mikoto, one of the seven level 5 espers in Academy City, in the same presence as them. Whittling whispers filled the room to accompany the musk of academia. Mikoto ignored their stares and turned to Tōma**.**

"You're lucky, you know?" she said as they found an empty table, "I know a lot about thermodynamics."

"Yeah?" he said, "Then do you know about the first law of thermodynamics?"

"Of course I do! It's the law of the conservation of energy!" she said. Tōma was impressed. Mikoto wore a look of satisfaction.

"So tell me," he said, "Where exactly do you get your electrical energy from?"

"Huh?"

She never thought about this. Where _did _she get her energy from? She pulled her hand away from her hair and a sharp spark of electricity followed. The students around her looked up and sank back into their pages as if eye contact with Mikoto would result in electrocution.

"Well, that's obvious, isn't it?" she said, "My energy comes from my cells?"

"Yeah, right. And where do your cells get energy from?" he asked.

"From my surroundings, of course. They're constantly taking energy from everything I touch!" she replied.

"Really? So If I do this –" Tōma reached for Mikoto's hand with his right hand. "What are you –" she started.

His fingers wrapped around hers, the creases on their palms crossing as a woven fabric. Despite the billions of joules of energy that her hand could generate, it felt airy and delicate like paper. He only met her hand for a moment, but he didn't feel any energy drawn from him. She snapped her hand away to the giggling of the onlookers.

"Wha-what did you do that for!" she said. She was red and ready to zap him to oblivion.

"I was just testing to see if what you said was true," he replied.

"Of course it wouldn't work!" she said, trying to cage her voice from the other students, "You used your right hand!"

"Oh," he said. Tōma reached for her other hand with his left hand. He clinched it as before, feeling nothing but her touch. "Still nothing."

She stayed silent for a beat, shaking in embarrassment. The blood slammed against her skin; she felt as if she was sitting in a pot of boiling water.

"Mikoto?" he said.

"You…"

A cold pain shot up his arm and the left side of his body went numb. He jerked back instinctively and raised his right hand in front of him. He could detect the scent of electricity. It smelled like a warm photocopier.

"Ow!" he said as he massaged his arm.

Mikoto only offered him a meek glance and said, "Sorry". She waited for the students around her to resume studying to eliminate the risk of a rumor swelling beyond her control. Surely, she and Tōma would star in tomorrow's gossip if she let any more reactions escape her façade. Tōma began to feel the stares running through his being as well. He opened his physics textbook and flipped to the chapter on thermodynamics. "Why don't I ask you about work and heat?" he asked. Mikoto, still aflush, nodded.

It began to drizzle.

The students around them gradually returned to their studies as Tōma exchanged questions with the railgun sitting in front of him. The persistent rattle of wind against the tall windows provided the exclamation point to her answers. An hour passed. It was dark now, and Tōma realized that he had wasted away another sixty minutes dropping concepts without absorbing them. Tōma looked up from his textbook to Mikoto, who finished explaining something about how negative and positive work related to the expansion of gases.

"So do you understand how to solve the problems with work applied to a gas now?" she said.

Tōma frowned. "I think so," he said. Mikoto crossed her arms.

"Hmph. You still don't understand any of this, do you?" she said. Mikoto wielded her disappointment as skillfully as her railgun.

"I think I'm done for now. The library's too stuffy anyway. Can I walk you home?" he said. Mikoto recoiled.

"It's drizzling outside, and I don't have an umbrella," she said.

"That's fine, I brought one," Tōma offered.

Mikoto hesitated.

"Fine," she replied.

By the time they left the library, the drizzle had turned to rain. The couple walked down the local road out of the way of downtown Academy City. A tenable silence floated between them as Tōma reached over and nudged Mikoto into him and away from the rain. Her hands were cold, shivering. She must have been blushing. Tōma couldn't tell; he didn't want to know. She leaned into him, head on his shoulder. An earthy petrichor overcame the smell of ozone that clung to her. Tōma wondered if walking beside a human lightning rod in a potential thunderstorm was the wisest course of action.

A human lightning rod, Tōma repeated to himself.

_What was Mikoto?_ A dynamo, a railgun, a force of nature. Level 4 espers had tactical military value; level 5 espers could take on an army by themselves. Misaka Mikoto could send out an electromagnetic pulse and obliterate every transistor and circuit in a 200 mile radius. If she wanted to, she could cast the entire world back by three centuries and vaporize any living thing who tried to stop her. Only two espers, Accelerator and Kakine Teitoku, were more powerful than her, and both of them were incapacitated. Tōma arrived at the disheartening conclusion that at the moment, Misaka Mikoto was the most powerful being on Earth. And this being was leaning on his shoulder, holding his arm in a warm embrace. What was Mikoto _to him_? Just a girl, he decided.

"I think I know where I get my energy from now," she said. Her voice was swimmy.

"Where?" he asked.

They walked beneath the streetlights, passing through cone after cone of dim light. Tōma caught the torpor in her eyes every time a streetlight lit up her face.

"I remember now," she said, "Espers draw their abilities from dark energy."

"Dark Energy?" he repeated. Mikoto nodded.

"It's invisible. The ability of an esper is to channel that dark energy into real energy. Some people do it more effectively than others," she said.

"And I suppose you do it very, very effectively?"

A car swerved close to the sidewalk and threw a wave of puddle water at Tōma. Mikoto jerked up her hand and produced a bolt of electricity and vaporized the water before it splashed onto them. The car continued into the rain, Tōma and Mikoto stood motionless on the sidewalk.

Mikoto stepped in front of Tōma, facing him. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky. She found both of his hands as Tōma eased his grip on the umbrella. The rain began to fall on their bodies.

"Very effectively," she whispered.

They connected eyes and then shut them as they leaned their lips in ever closer.

A crack of thunder resonated across Academy City. It didn't seem like the rain would stop anytime soon. What misfortune.


	2. Maxwell's Equations

THE WORKING PRINCIPLE of a railgun goes like this:

Take two rails connected to a common source of electricity and place them parallel to each other. Now take a conducting material, say a coin, and stick it in between the two lines to complete the circuit. From Ampère's circuital law, it follows that a clockwise magnetic force forms around an electric current in the direction of the current. This effect is doubled when two lines of current moving in opposite directions sit antiparallel to each other. In between the two currents exists a doubly strong magnetic force that points upward and perpendicular out of the plane of the currents. As electrons flow through the coin, a Lorentz force pushes the electrons away from the field, and so the coin becomes magnetized. The coin then shuttles down the two rails of current, away from the power source at blinding velocity.

Tōma closed the physics textbook and grabbed his jacket. He was supposed to be at the library in five minutes.

A blast of cold air met his face as he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. The first snow of the season fell on Academy City yesterday and covered it in a thin, white veil. Today, the sidewalks were already being pelting with slush from the asphalt. Tōma followed the trail of footsteps branded in ice, careful not to disturb the fresh white on the sidewalk.

He sighed.

Tōma had locked himself in his room to study Maxwell's equations for four hours straight. At least this time, he understood most of the concepts. Six hours earlier, he got back his thermodynamics exam: 68 compared to a median of 87. Had he only listened to Mikoto, he told himself, then he would have gotten an 80. The three part question on expanding gases cost him 12 points; he confused positive work with negative work.

A car drove by him and dumped black slush by his feet. He glanced at the spot where he and Mikoto kissed for first time. The cold of the rain, the warmth of her lips, her nervous touch. He remembered her fingers weaving through his. Since that night, they kissed a few more times. Mikoto still hadn't divulged to anyone that they were a couple. She told him she was afraid that Kuroko might teleport into his room and kill him in his sleep if she ever found out. And so they only met at the café after Kuroko had gone to bed.

The library appeared before him as he turned the corner to cross the street. Students flocked in and out of the doors to and from dinner. Tōma entered the building and found Mikoto lounging in the fiction section, not quite enjoying a book.

"You're late," she said without looking up.

"Sorry, I was just reading up on something," he said as he found a seat across from her.

"Reading up on what?" she said.

"You remember the first time I met you on the bridge, you asked me if I knew what a railgun was?" he said. Mikoto nodded. Tōma continued, "I just found out today how it actually worked. Apparently, you're supposed to have two parallel currents around the coin, but I've never seen currents like that in all the times you've shot your railgun. How come?"

Mikoto smiled. "Heh! You thought you could stump me with a question like that, did you?"

"Well, no. I was just—"

"Look, the answer's pretty simple," she said. "It's because the currents are so short, that you can't even see them."

Tōma thought about this for a moment. To accelerate a six gram coin to three times the speed of sound over a distance that he couldn't even see? That meant that Mikoto must have been generating an astronomical amount of energy from her hand, something to be expected from the most powerful esper on Earth.

"By the way," she said. "What did you end up getting on your thermodynamics test?"

Tōma fidgeted in his seat. "Can we not talk about that for now?"

"Not good, huh? Well, that's not a big surprise."

"You certainly have a lot of faith in me, Biribiri," he said.

She leaned back and crossed her arms. "Hmph. How do you think you're going to do on this next exam?"

"A lot better than the last one."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I actually _get _the concepts this time."

"Glad to hear it," she said as she turned away and pursed her lips.

Mikoto brushed her hair back, and her scent wafted towards Tōma. That scent like a toy motor or bumper cars at the amusement park, it didn't go away no matter how much perfume she put on to hide it. It was ozone, Tōma recognized. An electric spark provides enough energy to combine atmospheric oxygen into ozone. She tried to mask it with perfume, but he could always tell, and she knew that he could tell and that he didn't mind. She liked him even more for that.

"One thing, though, about your railgun," he said. "Isn't the coin powered by magnetism and not by electricity?"

"Technically, yeah."

"So your electricity produces the magnetism, right?"

"Yeah."

"So, shouldn't you also have magnetic powers too?"

Mikoto scrunched her face to one side and shook her head.

"Idiot," she started, "it's not that easy".

"What do you mean?" he said.

"I mean, it's like trying to use chopsticks to hold on to a spoon and then using that spoon to eat," she said. "Sure, I might be able to use the spoon after some practice, but not as well as just using the chopsticks directly".

Tōma nodded and wondered to himself how Mikoto came up with such an apt analogy so quickly.

"So are we actually going to study physics?" she said. "I didn't come here just to entertain you, you know."

Tōma pulled his physics textbook from his backpack and opened to the section on Maxwell's equations. For the next thirty minutes, they cruised through Biot-Savart's law and Gauss's law for magnetism. Somehow, Tōma absorbed these concepts faster than Mikoto did when she first studied them. Almost jealous, Mikoto pounced on his errors with a flurry, and Tōma never made the same mistakes again.

The day was dead by now. Most of the students had left for dinner, and the study space vacated in a hurry. Mikoto looked out the tall window. Outside, two neat rows of dotted light, one white, one red, flowed past each other on the road. They reminded her of the two currents of her railgun. Mikoto thought to herself, if she extended the current for a few more meters, she could accelerate the coin even more and score higher on her next pool measurement test. How come no one ever told her she could do this?

"...Maxwell?" said Tōma. Mikoto only caught the last word.

"Say that again?" she said.

"I said, who exactly was Maxwell?"

"A Scottish physicist who lived in the 19th century," answered Mikoto. "Maxwell was the theorist. Faraday was the experimentalist, but both were great scientists."

"Scientists?" produced a high-pitched voice from behind Tōma. Mikoto locked up quicker than Tōma could turn around.

"I didn't think the apple of the Ace of Tokiwadai's eye had a scientist fetish."

Behind Tōma rolled in a petite girl on a wheelchair. Her rosy pigtails drooped down to her shoulders and surrounded a devilish grin that hung on her face.

"K-K-K-Kuroko!" said Mikoto.

"So tell me, Onee-sama," said Kuroko. "What might you be doing here with this man?"

"We-we were just studying," replied Mikoto.

"Really?" she said. "You're awfully red, Onee-sama." Kuroko rolled up to the table between Tōma and Mikoto. "Do I detect a hint of _love_ in the air?"

"Kuroko, is it?" said Tōma. "Didn't I save you a few months ago?"

"That's right!" she steamed, almost lunging at Tōma. "And that's the only reason you're still conscious!" Kuroko gnashed her teeth and tried to impale him with her stare.

"There's some relationship between you two that I don't know about, isn't that right?" she continued.

"Actually," Tōma said, "we really did just come here to study."

Mikoto kept her head down and arms between her legs to hide her glow. She trusted that Tōma could talk for her.

"Regardless, I came here to retrieve Onee-sama," said Kuroko.

"For what?" asked Tōma.

"If you must know, Tokiwadai Middle School is hosting a Christmas dinner for all espers level 4 or above," she said. "It's in an hour, and attendance is mandatory."

Tōma scratched his head and said, "Well, I guess that's fine then."

"Oh, it better be fine!" said Kuroko. "I'll be out of my wheelchair in a week, so we can duel then for the Ace of Tokiwadai's honor!"

"Duel?" repeated Tōma.

"Kuroko," said Mikoto. "I don't think that's necessa—"

"It is necessary!" said Kuroko. "There's no other way to settle this."

"Yeah, but I'm a level 0," said Tōma. "And you're a level 4 if I'm not mistaken. It wouldn't be fair."

Kuroko scoffed. "You try to fool me with your words, but that won't work," she said. "You are the one, after all, who saved me from Awaki Musujime."

Kuroko clenched her fists and bit her lip. Tōma produced a nervous smile.

She reached over and grabbed Mikoto's arm, still limp between her knees.

"Come on! We're leaving!" said Kuroko as she wheeled for the exit. Tōma stared helplessly as Kuroko dragged Mikoto into the night. From outside, Mikoto shot Tōma a final glance before she disappeared around the corner. Tōma shrugged and closed his textbook. He decided he would call Mikoto tomorrow.

Kuroko refused to let go of Mikoto even as Tōma phased out of view.

"I don't know what you see in that man, Onee-sama," said Kuroko without looking back. "He reminds me of the criminals I catch for Judgment."

"Kuroko, could you let go of my hand?" said Mikoto.

"Only if you promise to stay away from that guy."

"Okay."

Kuroko turned around and studied Mikoto's face for a tell. Unable to find one, she eased her grip on her superior's hand.

"Don't worry. I'll win back your honor, Onee-sama," she Kuroko.

They continued down the sidewalk. The snow began to harden as the December winds continued to beat on the ground. Mikoto emitted a weak electric field to heat up the air around her. That was how she could wear her summer uniform even in the winter.

"Like I said, Kuroko," said Mikoto. "You don't need to do that."

"This is out of your hands now, Onee-sama," said Kuroko. "I've decided already, and when I've decided on something, it's final."

Mikoto halted in her steps. Kuroko turned around. "Onee-sama?"

"I just remembered something," said Mikoto.

She reached into her pocket and retrieved a coin, five grams, 75% copper, 25% nickel. She placed it on her thumb and then flicked it up. Kuroko tracked the coin as it hung in the air.

Mikoto shot out two long rays of electricity around the coin, and a hundred yen launched into the night in a beam of orange energy, vanishing among the stars.

"That was faster than usual," said Kuroko.

"A lot faster," said Mikoto.

Satisfied, Mikoto smiled and walked past Kuroko and began to jog towards Tokiwadai.

"Wait! How'd you do that?" said Kuroko as she wheeled after the railgun.


	3. Planck's Law

THE TAXI ROLLED to a stop between Main Street and Tokiwadai Avenue. An unprepossessing figure stepped out of the car and thanked the driver. He brushed back his crusty, black hair and pushed his spectacles up against the bridge of his nose and admired the grand city. He puckered his lips and squinted to make out the skyline in the distance. A frown gradually filled his sallow complexion. He wiped the grit off of his trench coat and walked down the snow covered sidewalk toward the heart of the city.

At noon, Center Plaza was always filled with students rushing to catch lunch before their next block of classes. Among the stream of students, a tall figure clad in gray, pushed against the flow of bodies and walked toward the school district. The students stared at the man as he carried himself awkwardly across the busy space. He bumped into one of the girls, who dropped her book into the snow.

The man quickly picked up the book and brushed off the salt on the cover.

"I'm terribly sorry about that," he said as he handed the book back to her. Without waiting for a response, he quickly shuffled away and vanished into the crowd.

MIKOTO LAID ON her bed, phone against her ear, tracing outlines in the ceiling with her finger.

"94? Not bad," she said.

"I know," came Tōma's voice from the other end of the phone. "The highest grade in the class too!"

"Well, now. I think it's because this time you actually listened to me," she said.

Tōma laughed. "Sure, Biribiri."

"Right. So what's your next exam going to be on?" she said.

"Temperature and blackbody radiation," he said.

"Ah, the ol' heat exam that everyone fails," said Mikoto.

"Fails?" repeated Tōma.

"You know about radiation?" she asked. He said he did.

"You know about Planck's law?" she continued. He said he did not.

"That's why everyone fails," she said. "They test you on Planck's law and they never tell you about it in class. Planck's law is a simple equation that tells you what color light a hot body will emit. The hotter something is, the shorter the wavelength, so a blue flame is much hotter than a red one."

Tōma pondered her words for a beat and then acknowledged them with a grunt. "So, that means your railgun…"

"My railgun is light orange, so that's just above 1000 ºC," she said. "That's also why the coin melts after only 50 meters, because the coin is a cupronickel alloy, and this alloy melts at around 1000 ºC."

"Well, why don't you use a coin with a higher melting point then?" he asked.

Mikoto thought about this for a few seconds and then realized that Tōma actually offered a sensible suggestion. "Because Japanese coins are convenient to carry around."

"Fair enough," said Tōma. Best not to press the point, he thought to himself. "Do you plan to tell Kuroko about us soon?"

The question turned Mikoto's arms into limp noodles and threw a cold weight down to the pit of her stomach.

"I wasn't planning to…." Her voice trailed off.

"Well, she wants to duel me. And judging from the other day in the library, she wants to _kill_ me too."

"Look, Tōma," said Mikoto, "I don't think Kuroko is…"

A sharp click from the door, that unmistakable sound that she would burst into the room any moment now. Mikoto stared at the door, paralyzed.

"Mikoto, is something the matt—"

Mikoto snapped the phone from her ear and scrambled for a book, a brochure, anything. She watched in abject terror as the knob turned and the door began to creak open. Unable to find anything, Mikoto panicked and tossed her phone away.

"Good afternoon, Onee—"

The phone tagged Kuroko square in the face, and the thud of her body slamming the floor marked where the honorific should've been.

Outside the school district, the lanky man stood face to face with a small girl in one of the dark back alleys of Academy City.

"You say you're a level 4 telekinetic?" he asked.

"Yes, and if you don't leave me alone, I'm going to have to show you what I'm all about!"

The man lowered his head and adjusted his glasses. He opened his palm and revealed a jet of flames that cast a hideous glow on his face. "I'm sorry."

"Who are you?" asked the girl.

The man closed his palm and then pounced at her, his trench coat following behind him like a streamer. She raised her hand out of reflex, but before she could defend herself, her scream had been silenced in a haze of smoke.

"A student just lost her abilities?" repeated Mikoto. Kuroko nodded as they walked down the hall to the Judgment wing.

"Yes. Aki Misako, 14 years old, level 4 pyrokinetic," said Kuroko. "At around noon, she said she felt ill and couldn't show any kind of psychic ability after that."

"So?" said Mikoto. "I have a hard time using electricity when I'm sick."

"Ah, but what's interesting was that just an hour later, a student was attacked by a tall man wearing a trench coat in District 7. The victim was 15 year old Haruka Nishimura, also a level 4 esper."

They stopped in front of the door of the Judgment office.

"She had burns on 23% of her body, and the burn signatures matched Aki Misako's pyrokinetic ability," said Kuroko. "We have twenty witnesses who all testify that Aki Misako was in the mathematics building, half a mile away from where the attack took place."

"That means…" Mikoto started. The door slid open.

"An ability stealer," said Kuroko as she walked in.

The Judgment office smelled like coffee only when an urgent case came up. The pinging of keyboard strokes, the beeping of machines filled the modest, almost clinical room. Color coded filing cabinets stood steadfast against the ashen walls and flanked the computer terminal where Uiharu Kazari was working alone. Konori Mii must have tended to more urgent matters.

Kazari looked up and formed a cheery smile. "Misaka-san! Shirai-san!"

Mikoto and Kuroko walked over to Kazari. "Any leads?" asked Kuroko.

"Take a look at this CCTV clip I found," said Kazari.

On the screen, behind the scanlines and static, a dark figure in the distance brandished a stream of fire from his hand and then lunged at the girl in the foreground. A flash of orange and then a veil of smoke overtook the screen. The smoke then faded and revealed the girl unconscious on the scorched ground as embers pelted her body.

"Any idea who the perpetrator is?" asked Mikoto.

Kazari opened the file on her desk.

"He only goes by the alias 'Dante'," said Kazari. "Born in 1989 in District 10 of Academy City, disappeared in 2005 after Judgment cracked down on gang activity there."

Attached to the folder was a black-and-white head shot of Dante, the only photograph on file. Mikoto grabbed the picture and inspected it. His hair swept over his thin eyebrows and was wiry like steel wool. Both his eyes and lips seemed withered from age despite his relative youth.

"No doubt, a product of The Strange," said Kuroko. Mikoto agreed.

"Something else came up before both of you got here," said Kazari. "Aki Misako called Judgment to tell us that she got back her abilities."

Kuroko pondered this for a beat. "So this Dante guy doesn't actually _steal_ abilities, just _borrows_ them?"

"It would seem that way," said Mikoto.

"Any idea how he does it?" asked Kuroko.

"According to witnesses, Dante physically bumped into Aki Misako at around noon," said Kazari.

"By touch, then?" said Kuroko, mostly to herself.

Mikoto and Kazari both agreed. It was the best guess for now. Mikoto tossed around the facts on the case so far. Dante was an ability _borrower_, so the stronger the esper he came in contact with, the better. She was a prime target, and Dante knew this, no doubt. After all, the peerless electromaster didn't just build her reputation on pool measurement tests alone. She could fire coins to rival the effect of an anti-tank rifle, summon lightning storms, shift magnetic fields. Every last student in Academy City knew her name; she wasn't safe anymore.

AT A QUARTER PAST TEN, half of Academy City was already asleep. The windows of the student dorms altered between lit and unlit like a checkerboard. The islands of light from the streetlamps threw Dante into sharp relief as he walked through the snow. They were looking for by him now, he told himself, whoever They was. Let them come.

He had been a ghost for half a decade, traveling all over Japan but never straying too far from Academy City. He needed to settle the score for what happened to him in District 10. For five years, he gathered the tiles to assemble a mosaic of what happened to him, who was involved, why they did it. If it were up to him, he told himself, he would've left it all alone, disappeared and saved himself the trouble.

He felt a twinge in his forehead.

The snow beneath his feet began to shift. The streetlamps ignited and turned to wooden pillars aflame; the ground lit up and began to quake. He closed his eyes and continued to walk. His skin began to crack and peel off as the blisters on his palms started to expand. The flames lapped at his ankles; the earth was a bright red. He imagined himself as a monk. The face you have on when you die is the one you show to God, he told himself. To carry yourself with dignity even in death is the sign of the enlightened. His muscles began to disintegrate and the fire incised through his bone. He could feel the sinews in his legs melting, but somehow, he continued to walk. Carry your dignity, ignore the pain, keep walking, and for God's sake, do not open your eyes. The heat rippled through his center and pulsed with his heartbeat. The ground beneath him was white-hot now and started to chew away at his feet. I'm the phoenix, and this is my cremation, my rebirth. The blinding light pierced his eyelids and poured into his head. A flash of fire finally engulfed him.

He opened his eyes.

A gust of cold air struck his face. It stung worse than the heat. He was back in Academy City.

He let out a quivering sigh and continued to follow the footprints down the sidewalk.

Every day, he was immolated, and every day, he was resurrected. The hallucinations started in 2005, and they never went away. He took medication, abused drugs, injected himself with sedatives when he felt an attack coming; it only amplified the pain. The doctors told him it was posttraumatic stress disorder, but they were liars. Such a simple diagnosis didn't even cover a fraction of his pathology. His senses were also damaged beyond repair. For five years, he watched life go by at five frames per second. Every frame stuttered into the next one, and he was never sure what happened in between each snapshot. His hearing was muffled, and his touch was numbed; he felt disembodied. Borrowing an esper's abilities alleviated the numbness, but the hallucinations never went away. The fire waited in deadly patience to pounce on him when he was most vulnerable, waited to dip him in kerosene and light a match at his feet so that the fire ascended from bottom to top and burned him like a sinner at the stake. The only way to stop it, he convinced himself, was to settle the score.


	4. The Maxwell Boltzmann Distribution

EVER WONDER WHY you never see lightning in a blizzard?

Actually, it's not impossible for lightning to strike during a snowstorm, but much rarer in the winter than in the summer. Part of the reason has to do with temperature. A thunderstorm cell can only form if warm air rises fast enough to the troposphere, and cold air is too heavy. Another reason has to do with humidity. Compared to summer air, winter air is drier. This is because cold air is denser, and so fewer water molecules can squeeze in between the air molecules. Since dry air is a worse conductor than moist air, a higher electrical potential is required before a lightning bolt can discharge.

And that's where the Ace of Tokiwadai fit in. Between the pockets of low humidity. In the wintertime, most electric-type espers dropped a quarter, a half, perhaps even a full level depending on the circumstances. Misaka Mikoto's gigavolt discharges could still ionize just about any kind of insulator, but she was forced to expend more effort to use her powers. This was why the System Scan relegated her to the lower half of the level 5's from December to February.

A stream of vapor shot from the amber-haired girl's mouth as she traversed across the bright, powdery quad. The vapor cloud lingered in the air for a moment and then dissipated, fated to become frost in the morning. Kuroko was with her. Judgment decreed two days ago that all level 5 espers would be accompanied by a level 4 whenever they went outside their dorms. Accelerator's room might as well have been a military base.

"No sign of Dante since his first attack two days ago," said Kuroko. "What do you think he's up to?"

"I don't know," said Mikoto. "All the level 5's can defend themselves, so that leaves only the level 4's, but he already has a level 4 ability."

Kuroko wrapped her arms around her senior and squeezed. Today was unusually cold.

"I have you to keep me safe, Onee-sama," said Kuroko.

"Ah, Kuroko, you're hopeless," sighed Mikoto.

"So what do you think he's after?" she asked, releasing her grip.

Mikoto sipped on the air. "I don't know. He might be testing his powers or trying to find one he's looking for and then running away with it."

"Do you think it might be revenge?" asked Kuroko.

Mikoto glanced at Kuroko and then turned back to her feet. "Maybe. That would be the most dangerous." Kuroko agreed and then looked up.

"Hey, is that…." The two girls stopped in their tracks. Mikoto was afraid to look up. Please don't let it be Tōma.

It was Tōma.

"Well, onee-sama, I'm at a loss for words here," chirped Kuroko. "I was going to say 'it's Tōma, your—', but then I realized that I didn't know which noun to use. Why don't you enlighten me?"

"Friend! Just a friend!" said Mikoto. She'd seen something like this in a movie before. Two girls were sauntering through a park in midsummer when they happened upon a familiar boy. One of the girls used to date the boy and detests him now, the other adored him. The ex-boyfriend said "hi" to the one who adored him.

"Oi! Birbiri!" called Tōma. The boy jogged up to them, greeted his ex-girlfriend to be polite.

"Hey, Shirai-san," said Tōma. "Looks like you got out of your wheelchair." Then the ex-girlfriend reciprocated the greeting in a threatening tone.

"Oh? You noticed," said Kuroko. "Maybe we can finally have our duel soon." And then the boy asked the other girl how she's doing.

"Anyway, how're you doing, Mikoto?" asked Tōma. And then the girl said something.

"Well, I..." And then the girl said something. "I'm doing alright." Did she really say that?

"So what brings you to the middle school district, Kamijō Tōma, the great level 0?" asked Kuroko.

"Just passing through to get to the shopping district," said Tōma. "They're having a big sale over there, you know?" Kuroko scowled. Tōma scratched the back of his head and squeaked a nervous laugh. "Buy one box of oatmeal, get the second one free!"

The ex-girlfriend kicked the guy in the balls at some point, Mikoto remembered. Fortunately, Kuroko wasn't so hotheaded, right?

"Onee-sama!" yelled Kuroko, clasping her senior's wrist. "We're leaving!"

"Hold on, Kuroko. Let me just bring Tōma up to speed on what's going on."

Kuroko eased her grip and sighed, dissatisfied. Mikoto turned to Tōma as Kuroko crossed her arms and looked away. "Have you heard about the recent esper threat?" Mikoto asked.

Tōma shrugged. "I don't keep up with Judgment stuff."

"Well, there's a man called Dante running around Academy City. He's an ability stealer."

"Stealer?"

"Or borrower. When he touches an esper, he absorbs that person's abilities until he touches another esper. We don't know if the transfer of ability is voluntary or not, but we do know that he's currently borrowing the powers of a level 4 telekinetic."

Tōma brushed his hair back. "An ability borrower, you said?" Mikoto nodded.

"I'm telling you this because if he ever gets to a level 5 esper, we're going to need your help to stop him."

Mikoto pulled Dante's profile picture from her coat pocket and showed it to Tōma. "Or if you ever run in to him, you know what he looks like." Tōma studied the photograph and noted his thick spectacles that distorted his eyes like a magnifying glass. "And what does Judgment plan to do to him when he's caught?"

"We're only backing up Anti-Skill on this one. It's far too dangerous for Judgment to get involved."

"So what does Anti-Skill plan to do to him when he's caught?"

A breeze swept over the quad and lifted the loose snow into the air. Kuroko rubbed her hands together and breathed into her palms to warm them up.

"That's not up to them to decide," said Mikoto. "The penalty for an adult to attempt to murder an underage esper in Academy City is death."

"Death?" repeated Tōma in disbelief. Mikoto nodded.

"The point of Academy City is to farm espers, after all. Anyone who interferes with the city's operation is punished without mercy."

"Onee-sama!" yelled Kuroko, still turned away. "Are you done yet?"

Tōma and Mikoto connected eyes one last time. She licked her chapped lips and smiled. "Be careful," she whispered.

A FEW MILES AWAY, a howl punctured through the silence in District 10. Dante clutched his head and buried it into his lap. He trembled in his seat, eyes watering from the pain. Quick puffs of air forced themselves in and out of his lungs. The roars of a dog barking jagged on his ears like broken glass.

"Jesus, Dante. Wan' me to call fer a doctor?"

Fighting through the violent spasms, Dante managed to squeak out a weak "no".

Virgil ran upstairs and poured a glass of water. When he came back down to the basement, Dante was drenched in sweat, heaving breaths, but the demon had apparently left his body. Hands still trembling, he grasped the cup of water that Virgil offered him and chugged it all in two gulps.

"The hell was that?" asked Virgil. His voice sounded like it had been dipped in phlegm and hung in a chimney flue. "You coulda moved a mount'n with that holler."

Dante shook his head. It hurt to breathe. He looked around and tried to recall where he was, but his vision was mired in perspiration. With painstaking effort, he made out a TV set embedded in the inky darkness, then an armchair, then a wine cabinet. He made out Virgil, face tattered by wrinkles and the cuffs of his wool sweater rolled back to his elbows, exposing his beefy forearms. By his feet, a gold and black German shepherd was panting with his head tilted to one side. This was the basement in Virgil's house, he remembered.

He dislodged the glasses from his face and wiped the sweat-soaked lenses with his shirt. "Who's the mutt?" he finally asked.

"That's ol' Cerberus, the neighborhood roamer," said Virgil. "You're alright, son? You look like you just done fought off the devil."

Dante chuckled and massaged his forehead. Virgil grabbed a bottle from the wine cabinet and filled two glasses with bourbon. After a few seconds, Dante's heart rate returned to normal and his breathing became steady.

"I'm fine now," said Dante. "Thanks for the water."

Virgil nodded as he handed him a glass of bourbon and settled in the armchair across from Dante. Cerberus, uninterested, walked to the corner and lay on the linoleum.

"Five years," said Virgil. "Five years you were gone. We all thought you was dead."

"Most of me _is_ dead. Don't you see? I'm already halfway to hell. I'm just looking for a way to pull that part out."

Virgil sipped on his bourbon and then lit a cigarette that tasted like a dirty coin. Dante played with his glass, contemplating if he should drink something so strong after an attack.

"What're you gonna do now?" asked Virgil.

"I know it was Judgment who burned it down, Virgil. They killed everyone I knew."

"So yer' gonna go and murder the boys at Judgment?"

"No, no, I don't want to kill anyone, I'm not like them. I just want some peace and for these fucking headaches to go away."

"So what _are _you gonna do, Dante? You ain't answered me yet." Virgil sucked on his cigarette and then puffed out a column of smoke that billowed toward the ceiling. Dante took a sip of the bourbon and grimaced as a wave of warmth emanated from his stomach and rippled through his limbs. Cerberus walked over to Dante and ensconced himself beside him.

"I don't know, Virgil," said Dante as he scratched Cerberus's head. "I'll get rid of this headache one way or another." Dante took another shot of alcohol. "Either I'll do what they did to me, or I'll die trying."

Virgil shook his head and finished the remaining bourbon with a glug, crossed his legs. "Lookatcha. Yer' still young. Don't be stupid and go throwin' yer' life away like a damned fool."

"Like I said, Virgil, I have no life to throw away."

Dante weaved his fingers through the fur on Cerberus's back. Virgil finished his cigarette, lit another, and stared at nothing in particular. "If yer' gonna go and burn down all them buildings, then why'dja throw away that fancy fire ability you had before?"

"I used to be a telekinetic myself, Virgil. You remember that." Dante warmed himself with another sip of bourbon. "Besides, a telekinetic can also light things up if he wanted to. He just has to concentrate, is all. Shift up the molecular speed distribution instead of uniform molecule moveme—"

"Son, you best stop right there. I'm sorry I asked." Another puff of smoke shot from his mouth.

Dante downed the contents of his glass, placed the dog on the floor, and stood up, waved away the smoke. He thanked Virgil for the drink and threw his spectacles in the dustbin.

"I don't need them anymore," said Dante. "I reshaped my cornea so I can see better."

Virgil cleared his throat and finished off his second cigarette. "Are you going?"

"Soon."

"Don't get yerself killed."

Dante headed upstairs and sprawled his body out over the futon. He dragged himself into a restless slumber.

By the time he woke up, the stars had tuned into visibility. Dante fled into the night, and Cerberus followed.


	5. Heat of Combustion

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, the rest of Academy City buzzed and blared in contrast to the muffled interior of A Certain High School. Every evening, the chalky walls were washed in moonlight after being sullied by artificial, fluorescent light during the day. The rays bounced off the lumpy walls in odd directions and cast kaleidoscopic shadows on the floor. Tōma and Mikoto, hand in hand, skulked through the wall of moonlight, staying low even though they were on the fourth floor. Mikoto was nervous. She had first broken curfew, and now she had broken into a building. These were punishable by disciplinary action, but she realized long ago that the term "disciplinary action" was a euphemism. She thought of her housemaster and winced.

"We're almost there," he said. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

She'd already created several layers of lies to sneak out of Tokiwadai. She told Kuroko that she was going to study downstairs in the lounge; she told the housemaster that she was visiting an adjacent dorm without Kuroko, which was allowed; she told Saten and Kazari that she wouldn't be answering her mobile because she accidentally fried it in a fit of embarrassment when Kuroko almost molested her. She did this all for Tōma.

"We're here," he said.

In front of them was a final stairway that ascended to a metal door designed to look like a fire exit. Tōma reached in his pocket and produced a small key that he inserted into the lock. He turned the key and pushed the door ajar. An ocean of moonlight poured into the narrow stairway.

She had seen this scene before. It was the same movie that she thought of on the powdery quad yesterday. Instead of winter, it was summer break. The boy led the girl through the vacant hallways of his school and picked open the lock to the roof. On the roof, they sat on the dry tar, August-hot and swampy, and talked for what seemed like hours.

Tōma led Mikoto to the top of the high school. The concrete beneath her feet was cool and shiny like rough quartz. Past the fenced perimeter, the track and field idled below, edged in dust and pieces of rubber from the P.E. sessions the day before. Beyond the athletic space, several more academic buildings clad in blue glass dotted the campus. The briefest flashes from passing cars leaked through the narrow slits between the buildings and trees. In the distance, long bridges intersected with rising business centers and shopping malls that met at a skyline topped by aircraft warning lights like blinking cherries on a sundae.

They said nothing as they sat down on the concrete and stared at the stars. The night was surprisingly warm, and the moon howled at them as if it were ten times its size. I could read a book in this kind of light, Mikoto thought.

"They say that when a guy and a gal kiss on the roof of the high school on a Saturday night, they're fated by the stars to become lovers," he said, looking up.

Mikoto cocked an eyebrow. "That's awfully mushy. You made that up."

Tōma turned and broke into an innocent grin. A gentle breeze sifted through the fence to punctuate the moment.

How did she end up here? How did he win her over? She could still smell the electricity wafting across the city when they stood on that bridge almost a year ago. The night was warm, much like this one. He told her that she didn't have to sacrifice herself to protect her sisters. _She didn't have to sacrifice herself. _She flared up in fury. Shards of unbreakable rage scraped at her composure. She wanted to _kill _him. Shock after shock after shock; a billion volts of energy she threw at him like a javelin. Still he stood there, muscles locked in place. For the first time in her life, there was something that she couldn't conquer with just her powers. No matter how many volts she discharged, no matter how much she concentrated, she couldn't win him over. He was insuperable. He finally fell like a scarecrow blown over by a stiff breeze. He was smoldering where he lay, arms charred, clothes smoking. There was something mystical about him, she remembered (how the hell did his clothes not catch fire, anyway?). Right then, she felt something churn in her gut. It carved something deep within her like twisted metal. She didn't understand what it was at the time, but now she knew: it was fear, fear that she might lose him. What if Tōma never woke up? What if Tōma were _gone_? Not a minute ago she wanted him dead. She collapsed on the concrete and spun in a messy delirium. As she pulled her knees under her head, Mikoto peeled open his eyes; they were like pearls, glassy like a cadaver's. By the time he came to, she was leaking tears. Those heavy beads cascaded from her eyes to his as if to apologize.

The roof was still cool like quartz, the air still crisp. The skyline still glistened in the distance past the fence. They met lips. His breath brushed against her cheek.

"Do you like me?" asked Mikoto. Tōma searched her eyes and smiled.

"No," he said. "I adore you."

A glowing warmth gushed from her head and rolled through her limbs. Bright patches of phosphenes blotted her vision. How could she let something so corny get her like this? Her face simmered. I must look like a tomato right now, she thought. This was where they kissed and confessed to each other in the movie too. Tōma's eyes widened and he suddenly jerked her into him.

"What was that for?"

"I saw a spark," he whispered, barely audible. "And I thought you could control your powers by now."

"Tōma…"

"Shhhh…. The stars are watching."

Mikoto eased her eyes shut. The flow of time ebbed to stagnation. Far away someplace, a woman was frozen mid-sentence, her jaw slack and her hand attempting to form a gesture. Across from her, a man had sunken his teeth into the sandwich suspended in his hands, but his muscles had stiffened and he could not even twitch. Nearby, a child carried an overextended arm in front of him. A cup, apparently knocked over, hung weightless in the air, the water inside fixed in an amorphous blob never to hit the ground below. Leaves idled motionless in the air; squirrels and pigeons lay petrified on the grass; businessmen and fast-talkers refused to move as if they were models bound to a pose to be sketched by an artist; the world had been caught in a snapshot. Headlights in the distance sat in perfect stasis. The watchless moon dominated the sky, which had been dabbed purple from strands of stray light below. Academy City seemed blithefully unaware of the two figures cuddling on the roof of A Certain High School. They shared a clockless moment as the wind disappeared, the rustling of the city muted, and time condensed to a single point.

Suddenly, the sharp blare of an alarm shattered the hypnosis.

CERBERUS PANTED and pranced about as Dante crossed through the soulless back alleys. The gold and black German shepherd had taken a liking to him. He's just hungry, Dante reasoned to himself. Grime and garbage-water lapped at his boots. Puddles of petrol rainbows glistened luridly under the full moon. What a shithole, he thought.

They trekked through the filth, careful not to touch the refuse, and then skulked across the street to find a four-story building encased in glass that signified their arrival to District 7. Dante cupped a block of snow and brushed Cerberus's paws with it. The snow became discolored as Dante washed away the gunk that hung on the dog's fur. Cerberus shivered and then licked at Dante's hands as he cleaned him.

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into, little doggie," he said. Cerberus tilted his head, perplexed.

Dante brushed his hands, ambled to a food stand on the sidewalk, paid for twenty sticks of shish kabobs, and then made his way to a bald patch of grass. Cerberus followed closely behind him. Dante pulled the chunks of meat from the skewers and threw them in the grass where Cerberus pounced on it with voracious abandon.

"Stay here," he ordered.

Cerberus glanced up at Dante as if he were going to ask him to repeat what he said and then resumed inhaling the meat.

Dante made his way through the slushy trail and across two adjacent baseball diamonds and then a track and field. The stars didn't seem to mind.

He stopped in front of a three-story display of architectural conformity. It didn't look like any kind of school, more like an administrative building. The walls were immaculate and must have been to government standards, whatever they were. Quarter-inch thick windows, American steel foundation, and synthetic, non-toxic paint. State-of-the-art. There must be at least a Judgment office in there. A few squares of light were framed on the edifice, probably filled with faculty working overtime. It resonated with a quaint familiarity. But that's not too strange, he told himself. He used to be a vagabond here.

Academy City was more of a caste based on privilege rather than merit. True, esper level did affect the caste; level 5 espers always composed the upper echelon of the pyramid, but if one were too poor to afford schooling, one could never join the esper community in the first place. Dante was born in The Strange, an eternally dilapidated and gray part of District 10. Skill-Out gangs made up of level 0 thugs ran rampant there. They terrorized espers and non-espers alike, bullied shopkeepers into forking over "protection" money, and ran underground businesses to stay afloat. Both of Dante's parents had been Skill-Out gang members and without psychic powers, but it was evident from his birth that he was different. At age 2, he could move light objects with his mind. At age 5, he could generate enough friction in a block of wood to start a fire. Realizing his potential, his parents left the gang and scraped together their remaining assets, but they still were too poor to enroll him in formal studies. Dante however, possessed a ravenous hunger for knowledge. He practiced moving and levitating and igniting until his mind was sapped and his body was frail. At age 9, he started to visit District 7, peering into windows and stealing books to read. After a year of self-study, he evaluated himself by Power Curriculum standards and found that he was a level 4 telekinetic. He surmised that had he enrolled in formal schooling, he would be a level 5.

Dante concentrated on lock and mentally manipulated the cylinders inside the contraption until he heard a _click_. He eased open the door and looked around. It was dark and dry inside. He placed his palm on the whitewashed walls and closed his eyes. Wooden skeleton. Perfect. The building creaked and then rattled as a hard wind pummeled the outer walls. Dante headed down to the basement. A mechanical hum grew in loudness as he walked through the steamy rooms. Finally, he reached the source of hum. It came from several large, silver tanks labeled "flammable" and plugged up to rubber cords that fit into metal pipes that climbed through the ceiling and innervated the rest of the building. He pulled out the cords from the tanks and turned the knobs. A loud hissing overpowered the low hum, and he could instantly detect the heady odor of hydrocarbons fill the room.

He walked back upstairs and pulled the fire alarm. A piercing blare rang through the halls and the entire building began to convulse in flashes of red and white light. He waited a few minutes and watched several confused workers shuffle through the fire exits. He frowned and in a flash of concentration, generated a spark. The basement exploded and a giant fireball began to chew its way to the first floor. The alarm continued to ring.

His knees suddenly felt weak.

_Not now!_

The ringing turned to a blare, then to a blast. He felt as if he were standing before a jet engine. The streaky linoleum beneath him flushed into a sweltering glow. His skin was boiling. The fire alarm began to sonicate the tissue past his eardrums, which had already popped like balloons. This time was a thousand times worse. He could handle the throes of pain in a normal attack, but the blare amplified the pain to a new, excruciating dimension. It cleaved through his brain like a white-hot katana.

_Think about something else, like you always do._

What can I think about? Each vibration rattled another bone in his head into mealy gruel. He couldn't think of anything but the real fire. Five years ago, he was living in The Strange with his parents and two brothers. Someone called out from outside. Said something about surrendering. Before anyone could act, the building ruptured in an orange mist of flame. The doors were locked, the windows were sealed. The heat lapped at his face. He could barely open his eyes, but he watched through tiny slits as his brothers turned red, then black as they were consumed by the flames. His father held him tight. Tried to protect him, but the smoke choked him into unconsciousness. He fell over and the fire scavenged on his burnt corpse. His mother huddled in the far corner, stared at him with terrified eyes. He concentrated. Created a bubble around himself to ward away the heat. The ceiling cracked, the wooden frame tumbled down, striking his mother in the head. No time to comprehend what happened. The heat, oh, the heat. He reached for the door nearest to him and with his last scrap of energy, mangled the lock and ran outside just before the foundation succumbed. The house imploded in a fiery pile of wood and concrete. His hands trembled violently. His mother's eyes like topaz flashed in his mind. He felt nothing now. No telekinesis, no focus, no substance.

He ran.

He ran as the night air weaved through his sweat-soaked hair like fingers. It felt so good against his wet scalp. He swallowed giant, chilled breaths and pumped his legs like pistons.

The night air felt so good against his hair. He felt like he could run forever.


	6. Ohm's Law

TŌMA AND MIKOTO shot up in unison to a noise that shouldn't have been there. Some stupid electrical glitch had ruined their moment together. What misfortune. Tōma rose up groggily and stepped over to the fence and studied the three-story building across the way. A group of workers in heavy coats stood impatiently in the parking lot beyond the front door. The alarm was loud and annoying. Some of them plugged their ears with their fingers. Tōma shrugged.

"Nothing," he said.

"You sure?" asked Mikoto. "No one would pull a prank this late, and electrical bugs in the alarm system are almost unheard of."

"Well, it wasn't you, was it?"

Mikoto folded her arms and frowned. "I think we ought to check it out."

Tōma supposed that Mikoto said that out of some odd sense of moral responsibility, that she needed to make sure everyone was safe or else she would regret her inaction. Or perhaps she said that out of a sense of duty as a member of Judgment. Either way, Tōma wasn't about to argue with either her request or her reasons for making it. That additional X chromosome wrought an unforgiving, unyielding side to anyone who happened to possess one. He struck down the fleeting thought, rolled his eyes, and sighed. "Alright," he conceded.

No sooner had Tōma finished his sentence than an unholy _boom_ erupt from beneath them. The windows on the first two floors of the other building shattered outward and shards of glass rained down on the icy pavement where the crowd stood. The ensuing shockwave knocked over the workers in the parking lot and activated several car alarms that blared in dissonance with the fire alarm. A wave of fire spumed from the basement and pushed upward against the first floor like a giant palm. Somehow, the foundations of the building held firm, but it would only be a matter of time before they capitulated. Tōma and Mikoto gaped at each other in a brief moment of confusion and then sprang from their paralysis.

They jetted down the stairs and raced across the street to the fire that was now an orange pillar. Smoke billowed toward the sky in a widening column. Even from a hundred feet away, they could feel the heat stinging at their skin. The workers had already retreated to the parking lot and were spewing strings of panicked syllables into their cell phones.

Good thing they're calling for help, thought Tōma. Because there's not much else we can do.

A middle-aged woman clawed at her cheeks as she cast an unrelenting gaze at the conflagration. She gasped in short, staccato breaths.

"What happened here?" Mikoto asked her.

The woman wiped the sweat from her forehead and turned to her. "I-I don't know. I-I was just filing some papers when I heard the fire alarm. I got out as fast as I could."

"How long was it between when the fire alarm was pulled and when the fire started?" asked Mikoto.

The woman shook her head. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

A young man with a bright, red cut across his forearm stepped forth. "It was about three or four minutes," he said. "Plenty of time for everyone to get out because no one was working on the third floor tonight."

"Are you alright?" asked Tōma. "What happened to your arm?"

"Just a scrape from a piece of glass. No big deal."

Tōma nodded and looked back. The building whimpered as the fire ate away at the supporting pillars. All the windows on the third floor burst at once, and smoke sprayed out from where the glass used to be. Tendrils of flame followed and clung to the outer walls like ivy.

"What kind of work were you doing up there?" asked Mikoto.

"I was just catching up on some work in the office?"

"Who do you work for?"

"Judgment. 51st branch. Why?"

Mikoto didn't respond right away. She held her chin for a beat and then looked back up.

"Did you see anyone on your way out who doesn't work here?"

The young man shook his head. Mikoto, disappointed, reentered her thoughts. Ripples of heat pulsed forth with every breeze. The blaze had seared a smoky essence into the air.

Tōma's hand landed on Mikoto's shoulder. "Mikoto, who's that?" He pointed at the fire with the other hand.

She turned back. Out of the blaze, a black figure darted out of the front doors and toward the parking lot where Tōma and Mikoto and the rest of the workers stood. A trail of ash swashed about in his wake. The tails of his trench coat fluttered in the wind. As he drew closer, the contrast between the figure and the fireball behind him closed to naught, and Tōma finally recognized the face in the photograph but tinted in a grotesque ochre.

Tōma shielded his eyes from another wave of heat. "That's…"

"Him!"

The running man slid to a halt as a brilliant bolt of energy unleashed from Mikoto's palm and landed inches in front of the tip of his boots. The bystanders turned to run. The man splayed his fingers over his chest to catch his breath. The towering pyre he no doubt ignited continued to burn. His coat was spotless and showed no evidence that he had been scorched or even singed. How strange. He was tall, much taller than Tōma had envisioned. His glasses were missing, but the calluses on the bridge of his nose were still shiny like polished pebbles. He was unmistakably the man in the photograph.

"Stay back here," Mikoto whispered.

"You sure?"

Mikoto nodded. "I'll handle this."

Tōma reluctantly stood in uneasy anticipation and watched Mikoto make slow strides toward the man. Tōma could make out a faraway gaze in his eyes beneath his wiry hair. He was stoic, like a death row inmate clinging desperately to his last mote of dignity before the firing squad pulled the trigger. Several streams of sweat rappelled down his face and met at his chin to form a single large bead that dropped on the pavement. He lifted his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. A reluctant frown constructed itself on his lips.

"Dante," said Mikoto, "you're hereby under arrest for arson and the attempted murder of a student."

"Is that how Judgment spun it?" He didn't flinch. He glanced up and then refixed his eyes on the ground. "You look familiar. Light brown hair, Tokiwadai uniform, no coat, so you must be either a pyrokinetic or an electromaster." He paused. "Misaka Mikoto?"

She didn't respond.

"I've seen you on T.V.," he said. "Look, you don't want any trouble, I don't want any trouble either. How about you just let me go here, and you'll have my word that I won't be a bother anymore?"

Mikoto snickered. "You sure underestimate me, Dante. You're coming with me, alive or dead."

Dante seemed disappointed that Mikoto had said that. Perhaps he was disappointed because he would be forced to fight and lose to Mikoto and then end up in prison. Or perhaps he was disappointed because he would be forced to fight and win and then regret it for another reason. Tōma licked his lips and prayed that it wasn't the latter.

Mikoto drew a hundred-yen coin from her pocket and held in front of her. The worn edges of the coin caught the orange glow in the distance. "Hey, do you know what a railgun is?"

Dante said nothing and did not look up.

"Also known as an ultra-electromagnetic cannon, it uses Fleming's principle of motion to fire bullets."

Mikoto flicked the coin up and discharged two parallel bolts of electricity from her fingers. The hundred-yen piece launched from her hand in an orange beam and shuttled past Dante, inches from his temple. Again, he didn't flinch.

"Will you surrender?" she asked.

Dante finally glanced up at Mikoto. "Do you know what Ohm's law is?"

"Huh?"

"It basically says that an electric current will follow the path of least resistance. I can heat the air around me into plasma, and that'll divert your electricity away from me."

Tōma dwelled upon his words for a moment. Plasma was just gas heated to such a high temperature that the atoms lose their electrons. The free electrons make plasma an excellent conductor, and since an electric current will always follow the path of least resistance (or the path of better conduction), the electricity would travel wherever the plasma lay since it's a much better conductor than air.

"As for your railgun, that's a simple matter of changing velocity. You can fire your coin at five times the speed of sound. I can slow it down to zero before it hits me."

Mikoto lowered her head. Sparks crackled from her eyes.

"Do you still wish to fight me?" he asked.

Mikoto swung her hand forth in an arc. A bolt of energy discharged from her palm and streaked towards Dante. Just before it struck, the energy veered away at a ninety-degree angle and seeped harmlessly into the ground. Another two bolts surged at him and were deflected by the same invisible wall. Dante never moved.

"Mikoto!" Tōma shouted. "Be careful!"

She clenched her fists and a layer of black iron powder lifted from the pavement. The iron assembled into a column and began to rotate. A buzz like a circular saw eating into aluminum emitted from the ensuing tornado. Loose pebbles danced on the ground like jumping beans. The pillar of iron extended high above Mikoto and arched forward. Dante looked up just in time to watch it crash into him.

Mikoto refused to exhale.

The pillar burst like a stick of dynamite, and pellets of iron shot outward in every direction. Tōma swatted away a stream of iron as it flew at him and it drilled through a nearby car in a clean hole. From the source of the explosion, Dante raised his hand and a jet of wavering air issued from his palm.

"WATCH OUT!"

The superheated air sliced through the bits of iron and toward Mikoto. She raised her hands instinctively and the pulse of air knocked her several feet backward into the concrete. He was quick. Before she even hit the ground, Dante was upon her.

Tōma blinked. Half a breath escaped his lungs.

Dante's fingers wrapped around her wrist.

Her eyes dimmed. The color drained from her cheeks. She trembled, terrified and nauseous. He released his grip, and the third ranked esper in Academy City plopped soundlessly onto the pavement. Her eyes were hollow.

"MIKOTO!"

The sound of her name boomed into the night and was then drowned out in its own echoes.

Dante turned sadly to Tōma. They locked stares. Something terrible began to sprout in Tōma's gut. His insides felt like a furnace. Rage rippled from his core. He felt like blood would gush from every orifice in his body. At Dante's feet, Mikoto lay immobilized but breathing.

"Get lost before you get hurt," said Dante, almost whispering as he turned to walk away.

Tōma clenched his teeth and lumbered in heavy strides at him, nerves tempered. Sweat in his eyes, wiped it off. Dante glanced over his shoulder. He threw a disappointed look at Tōma and swung his arms out. Tōma lunged, right hand in front of him, and a bolt of electricity met it in midair. Dante's eyes widened. A fist penetrated the wall of energy and connected with his mouth. He stumbled back, refusing to collapse, and rubbed his jaw. He grunted and forced a jagged frown, bone on bone. Sparks danced between them.

"Nice punch," he said. Only part of his jaw followed his muscles as he spoke. The rest of it gnashed against his tissue. "Quit while you're ahead."

A useless request, thought Tōma. He must have known it too.

Tōma launched himself again at Dante, but this time he skipped back and avoided his swing. Tōma's arm hung heavy and outstretched in front him. Dante stepped in and snapped his knee against his gut. Silvery spittle shot from his mouth. His diaphragm twitched from the blunt impact. Dante's elbow connected with the side of his head, and Tōma struck the ice. His brain thrashed in his skull. He could taste blood like molten iron frothing in his mouth. The ice felt cold against the nape of his neck. Tōma rolled over and slowly stilted himself on shaky legs. He held a hand over his stomach and grimaced between irregular breaths. His head hurt like hell. Dante massaged his jaw and waited for his opponent to catch his wind. The blaze continued in the background. The alarms weren't ringing anymore. He didn't know when they had stopped.

"Your right arm is interesting," said Dante.

Tōma huffed in shallow turns. He wiped his forehand with the back of his hand and fixed his stare on his opponent. Dante's trench coat fluttered in the January chill. Tōma tensed his legs. Loose snow brushed against his face.

Mikoto, he thought. Mikoto, he thought. He pounced.

A cruel breeze.

Blood splashed on the snow.

Perhaps he didn't think it through enough. Perhaps he was too blinded by rage to do so. Either way, he should've known that Dante expected him to attack him again. Should've known he would respond with a perfect counter to the chin. Now he lay paralyzed in the icy gravel, helpless as he stared into Mikoto's swollen, wet eyes, an image he would carry with him for the rest of his life. He wanted to go up to her and squeeze her and never let go, brush the tears away from her face, tell her that she was safe now and that it was all over. But his body refused to listen. This man had utterly defeated him.

Dante's shadow, blacker than black, crawled over his body.

It was impossible to move. Everything was numb. He tried to curse at his body for failing him, but the vowels perished before they reached his throat.

"Your right arm is interesting," he said again, squatting down beside him. He picked up his limp hand and then frowned.

He stood up and wiped his hands on his coat as if he had just graced a dead man. "It seems I can't borrow your abilities. Your ability negates mine."

Tōma only grunted. The taste of blood lingered in his mouth.

"It seems like you were given this ability for a special purpose that is far above me. I cannot possibly kill you here, and I never planned to."

Mikoto whimpered, lost in nausea. Dante looked at her and then back to Tōma.

"Who is she to you? A friend? A colleague? Perhaps a lover?"

_You dare talk about Mikoto? Don't even think about it…. _

"Listen, I have no intention of keeping her ability. But I do need it for one last thing. After that, you'll never see me again."

A stray draft swept in black, smoky flakes on to the parking lot. The sound of fire trucks whining in the distance was a welcome noise. The column of smoke and embers billowed into the sky; all of Academy City could see it. It was both a trophy of Dante's victory and a symbol of Tōma's defeat. Dante let the moment drag on as if to taunt him. Tōma could only curl his fingertips and grunt while the moisture on the ground chewed at his elbows. Dante massaged the bridge of his nose and turned away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Tell her that she'll be alright. I hate it when girls cry."

Those words hung in the air and then with Dante, dissolved into the distance.

Time passed. Whether it was an eternity or a moment, Tōma could not tell.

Mikoto was above him, sobbing his name, pleading for him to wake up. She looked like a ghost.

_Please stop crying. Tears weren't made for girls like you._

She caressed his cheek with her hand, warm and soft. Men in fire gear ran past her. Red and blue lights flashed just outside his field of vision. Everything was going swimmy.

_You'll be alright. You'll be alright. I'm sorry I worried you. Forgive me, oh, forgive me._

Mikoto calling out his name, remote and muffled, was the last thing he remembered before blacking out.


	7. The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics

EVEN FROM THE STRANGE, Dante could see the orange and gray pillar of smoke. Cerberus was lying outside the door of Virgil's abode as Dante returned from District 7 just an hour before sunrise. Dante scratched the dog's head, and he awoke and wagged his tail. He applied a magnetic force on the door bolt and it unlocked. Cerberus followed him inside. The apartment was dark, but Dante could navigate the room based on the electric field vectors rising from the ground. A stray ray of moonlight landed on an ashtray that sat on the kitchen counter. Five cigarette butts was all it took for the smoke to overwhelm the air freshener that Virgil had sprayed in here earlier that day.

Downstairs, the basement was lit by a single dim lamp on a nightstand in the far corner. Beside it, Virgil was stretched out across the couch and breathing easy. The walls looked otherworldly in its rusty glow. Dante made his way to the wine cabinet, poured a glass of bourbon, and held it up to Cerberus's nose. He sniffed it and quickly lost interest.

"Yer' back," croaked Virgil. "And ya smell like smoke."

"Yeah, your entire apartment smells like smoke."

"This smoke's different." He paused. "Ya did it?"

"It'll be on the news in an hour, I'm sure. You can find out what happened then." Dante took a sip of the liquid heat and mellowed out on the armchair across from Virgil. Cerberus claimed a spot by his feet and coiled up there. Virgil sat up as if he were doing Dante a favor and lit a cigarette that came from nowhere.

"Oh…," he managed. "Anyone follow ya?"

Dante shook his head. Virgil sighed and dragged on his cigarette. "If they did..."

"No one followed me," Dante reassured as he took another sip of the alcohol.

"And the headaches. Any better?"

"We'll see, won't we?"

Virgil took a long drag and slowly exhaled the smoke as if it contained a week's worth of nightmares and cold sweat. Cerberus was already asleep.

"Lock the door on yer' way out," said Virgil. He smothered the rest of his cigarette in an ashtray on the armrest of the couch and returned to his slumber.

The light was brighter now, and the silence louder. Dante fumbled through his thoughts as the magnetic field lines in the room slowly grew thicker. The sun was rising. The lamp flickered with every wave of drowsiness that washed upon him, and a clock somewhere in the shadows ticked to his breaths in a perfect litany. Cerberus breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. It would be an hour before Dante finally fell asleep.

TŌMA DID NOT STRUGGLE as he dropped from the sky and landed in the water. It was deep enough so that it cushioned his fall entirely but shallow enough so that it only reached his knees when he stood up. He rubbed his eyes and found himself at the center of an ocean. Everything was tranquil. The water at his feet was limpid, but the further he looked, the murkier it became, and it extended to infinite isotropy. The sky was covered in every direction by a sheet of clouds that looked like industrial smog. It met the water at a horizon so fine that he could crumble it with his fingers. The thundering silence pounded on his eardrums.

What misfortune, he thought.

He took a directionless step, and the air sloshed past his face without inertia. His legs felt light, and the liquid parted without argument. Tōma couldn't decide whether he was cold or hot; his body simply refused to tell him. He didn't feel thirsty, but for curiosity's sake, he scooped up a handful of water and poured it into his mouth. Tōma was disappointed. He expected this mystic fluid to taste salty or even sweet, but the water tasted only like water.

He began to tread through the ocean, unsure of what he was looking for. After a thousand or a million or a billion paces, he could hear cawing. From the blankness, a colossal black tower revealed itself. It stood in the water like a lone tree in the desert that caravans would recognize as a landmark. Four ebony turrets sprouted from each corner of a square wall that boxed in a center minaret that rose to meet the firmament. Ravens that roosted on the battlements squawked in staggered syncopation. The walls were black and ageless. Tōma rubbed his eyes and the tower was still there. He entertained the idea that perhaps the tower materialized out of thin air. After all, if it had been there all along, then certainly he would have seen it from farther away. But then again, in a world where one can walk a billion paces without feeling hungry or tired, one would do best not to speculate. He moved his legs, and the water gave way.

When he arrived at the base of the tower, he was greeted by two gigantic wooden doors. They stood at the top of a flight of marble steps above the waterline. As soon as he climbed up from the water, it began to move. The ocean had gotten itself into a hurry, and currents quickly formed amidst the fresh whitewater. They circled around the walls and sloshed against the elevated tower base. Tōma squatted down on the marble and dipped his hand into the stream, and the whitewater dissolved as abruptly as it had formed. Within seconds, the entire ocean had calmed. He pulled his hand out, and the water was reinvigorated. Strange, he thought as he turned to climb the rest of the steps.

The doors were rotten, and Tōma opened them easily despite how massive they were. He stepped in, and the doors closed themselves behind him. When his eyes adjusted, he saw he was inside a single large chamber supported by stone columns. The floor was smooth and reminded him of some high school roof. A cool, ancient fog pervaded the space and hid the walls. Tōma could not see the ceiling, but he assumed the tower reached to the sky. The air was damp and fetid. The only sources of light came from torches perched on the columns. Time had forgotten about this place.

He made his way through the thick fog and after a while, came upon a lanky man sitting crossed-legged on the floor. He had crusty hair and pale skin. His face looked familiar. Perhaps he'd seen him once before in a previous life, passed by him in a crowd and then traveled in opposite directions. He rose and slowly approached Tōma and greeted him with a flat hello.

"Who are you?"

He frowned. "My name's Dante. We met only yesterday and now you've forgotten?"

"You're the one who took her powers," said Tōma. Dante nodded.

Tōma jerked forward without restraint and launched a fist at him. Dante intercepted it.

"Where is she?"

Dante released his grip and diverted his gaze. "When you wake up, you'll be in a hospital. It'll be about two o'clock in the afternoon, and the walls will be green and paper-thin. She'll be napping in a chair by your bed."

"How do you know that?"

"You could call it a hunch," he said. "When I borrowed her powers, I saw a place for you in her subconscious."

"Don't fuck with me!"

He lunged at him. This time, Dante thrust a fist into his stomach, and Tōma fell clumsily to the ground. This all seemed so familiar.

"She'll be alright. Just don't get in my way," he warned. "I'm not trying to hurt anyone."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"That's fine," he said, "as long as you believe that I believe it."

Dante came off as reckless to Tōma when they clashed yesterday, but now he realized that nothing had ever been in doubt. That frown he carried was locked in place by his muscles, which themselves had been locked in place by habit. It hid his strength. To be a high level esper in Academy City was not considered a privilege but an accomplishment. There was no shame in showing off; rather, it was encouraged as inspiration for lower level espers. Tōma had not encountered a shred of modesty from a level 5 esper since he arrived in Academy City, and especially not from Misaka Mikoto. Dante's frown did not flaunt anything just as how Tōma could not flaunt his Imagine Breaker. Yet behind that mask of modesty, Dante could summon a lightning storm and vaporize Academy City. He could use the electric abilities more skillfully than the person he borrowed them from. Tōma knew this somehow. Call it a hunch, he supposed.

He glanced up at Dante, who wore a neutral expression on his lips, the closest thing to a smile that he could manage. It almost looked like the corners of his mouth were puckered up. Perhaps he still possessed some residue of telekinesis that he was using to penetrate Tōma's thoughts. If not, how could this meeting have taken place?

"Who is she to you?" asked Dante. "You never answered that."

Tōma stood up and heard his joints pop as he brushed himself off. His stomach throbbed. The sound of running water had grown to a steady roar.

"Just a girl," he replied.

"Do you love her?"

Tōma formed half a grin to absorb the abruptness of that question. "I adore her."

"Then don't let her go. You may not realize it now, but she adores you more than you adore her. But she won't say it. Even level 5 espers can be idiots when it comes to romance. And I can see it in your eyes. You don't believe me. You think I'm just making this up, don't you? Even if that's the case, you've heard my words, so remember them."

Tōma shook his head and chuckled to himself. "This is absurd. The person who knocked me unconscious has now invaded my dreams and is dispensing love advice."

Dante cocked his head and folded his arms.

"Has anyone told you how your Imagine Breaker works?"

"What?"

"I said, 'has anyone told you how your Imagine Breaker works?'"

"No."

"But you do know that espers draw their power from the flow of dark energy, right?"

Yes, at least that came clearly to Tōma. He remembered the library, the lush red curtains and the smell of old books like corn chips. He remembered Mikoto telling him something strange: that dark energy was the answer to the problem of the first law of thermodynamics, that all espers had this strange energy flowing through them, and that it was all a matter of channeling this energy into reality.

"Kamijō-san," he continued, "when something flows, there's always a gradient. Heat flows from hot to cold, objects fall from high to low. That's the zeroth law of thermodynamics. Your ability breaks this flow of dark energy from imagination to reality. The Imagine Breaker."

"That's sure dandy as hell, but why are you telling me this?"

"Do you know where you are?"

Now that he thought about it, Tōma realized that he had no idea what this place was. He had assumed that it was his dreamscape, but it was still peculiar. Why, he asked himself, would his brain construct a world like this? His usual dreams consisted of buying eggs at 75% off or just eating lots and lots of food. Now he was curious. Tōma told him that he had no idea where he was.

"This is the 'Imagine' in your Imagine Breaker," he said. "Dark energy flows through the water and ends up in this place. As long as you touch the water, the energy cannot flow."

Tōma allowed Dante's words to properly settle. "Then this is…"

"…Misaka-san's source of power. That's right." he finished. "But as you can see, she's not here right now."

"You still didn't answer my question. Why are you telling me this?" asked Tōma.

"Your Imagine Breaker trumps my ability borrowing power," he answered. "You're something special."

"And you, Dante? Are you supposed to be something special?"

"No, but it looks that way, doesn't it?"

Tōma mopped a handful of sweat from his forehead. The air had grown sultrier, and the temperature had crept up on him. As he reached for another breath, the chamber began to quake. Loose rocks and dust rained down from the columns. The ground turned warm. The fog that had occupied the room thinned out to reveal stretches of mossy, stone walls. Dante turned and sighed.

"Here it comes."

"Here what comes?"

Dante said something, but the rumbling overpowered his words. The chamber pillars began to crumble, and a red-orange glow swept across the floor. Tōma's feet began to sizzle. Panic seized him. It was too hot to breathe. He thought he might die of asphyxiation before he died of shock. The walls burst into flames. He scrambled for a column, perhaps to climb away from the floor, but it was red-hot already. Tōma relinquished control of his body to reflex and instinct. He covered his head and swallowed fire with each inhalation. Dante stood unflinching amidst the blaze like a bodhisattva. "See you." His words barely penetrated the thick air.

Tōma's knees buckled. His body surrendered and was claimed by the heat.

Darkness.

When Tōma woke up, he had a bitter taste in his mouth. His jaw complained about something awful, and his stomach felt droopy and raw. What an odd dream, he thought. The cloudy veil that covered his vision slowly vanished, and he could make out a blanket covering his body, the greenish, telltale walls of a hospital, and a row of windows to the left that framed the afternoon sun. Tōma sat up and stretched. He felt like a python that had just swallowed a zebra. Mikoto was asleep in a chair next to his bed. Her face looked tired but placid. Tōma brushed back her hair and lifted her chin.

"Mikoto," he whispered, and she slowly rolled up her eyelids. "Tōma…."

She jumped out of her chair and wrapped her arms around him in an uncompromising embrace. "You're okay…. You're okay…."

"I'm okay, I'm okay," assured Tōma. "What about you?"

"I'm a bit tired, but I'm fine. Don't worry about it." Her voice sounded as fragile as a paper butterfly.

Tōma placed his hands on her shoulders and smiled. "You'll be okay."

"You dummy. I know that!"

"Not too loud," whispered Tōma. "The walls here are thin."

"How would you know?"

"You could call it a hunch."


	8. Biot Savart Law

FOR THREE DAYS, Dante watched shapeless patches of magnetism caper around the room like a shifting fractal. Field lines were everywhere, thinning and thickening in their cross-crossing interference patterns. And there were _a lot _of lines. After all, anything that uses energy generates magnetism. A laptop, a light bulb, a radiator, they all send out field lines, but they quickly get drowned out by Earth's own prevailing magnetic presence. Dante swatted at the lines, but they passed through his hand like holograms.

Now and then, a passing car cut through the dancing blobs outside and left a messy hairball of vectors in its slipstream. Occasionally, a sheet of magnetism from a solar flare would descend upon the atmosphere and compress the Earth's fields until it rebounded and then continued in its wild dance. Dante could sense when something turned on or off nearby. The tenants next door changed channels, and new magnetic eddies swirled around the antennae on their television set. The refrigerator upstairs switched circuits and the defrost timer came back to life for the third time in the last hour. Transient sparks of magnetism flew past his eyes like confetti. It was a light show that he couldn't shut out. He once read in a book that birds could use magnetic fields to assess their direction, location, and altitude while they flew. Poor bastards, he thought. He began to wonder how Misaka Mikoto dealt with this. A single line from a song he once heard repeated itself in his head:

_Fucking magnets, how do they work?_

Virgil was upstairs nursing a glass of red wine and reading a book, a fiction novel about a virus or something like that. It was thick but worth its weight in sweat. A real good way to spend some time, he said, and he meant that with sincerity. With three days already wasted, perhaps reading something might not be a bad idea after all, thought Dante.

His neck stiffened, and he looked around to see if Cerberus was anywhere, but he wasn't. The dog could tell when an attack was coming on. Two days ago, Dante woke up to the dog's slimy tongue on his face. It was four in the morning and darker than a smoker's lungs. His eyes adjusted slowly, and he hawked up a wad of phlegm that had built up in his throat for the past three hours. He spat it into the dustbin and then felt a tic start in his neck. The dog whimpered and straightened his tail as the tic expanded into his head and then the rest of his body. Yesterday, the same thing happened, except it was at midnight. Dante rubbed his neck, and the ache eased away.

The dog was outside searching for scraps. He had always been animal of the streets. Dumpsters provided shelter for the few years that he roamed The Strange, and his meals often consisted of nothing but what the restaurants threw out. Every night, Cerberus scratched on Virgil's door, and most of the time, he would come outside brandishing a broom and the German shepherd would squeal and find somewhere else to sleep. On rare occasions, he would let him in, and he would lie down on the linoleum, careful not to knock anything over. The last time he did that, Virgil threw a glass of wine at him and struck him square between the eyes. The dog didn't come back for a month, but then the nights grew longer and colder, and by the time he scratched on Virgil's door again, he had thinned out to his bare bones. This was four years ago.

That December, Virgil let Cerberus sleep in the kitchen. Sometimes, he allotted a small portion of his meal to the dog. On Christmas Eve, Virgil brought home a steak and left it bloody on the kitchen floor next to the sleeping dog. By morning, the floor was spotless and streaked with tongue marks. To Virgil, their relationship was not one of a master and owner. He provided Cerberus with a place to live and food to eat but only because the damned dog would not go away. He was a man who valued privacy more than companionship. The dog gradually grew to respect him but not to love him. He was as a child who lived with a father who beat him but would never grow old enough to forgive him. Dogs die too soon. But he _was _thankful towards Virgil for giving him sanctuary and sustenance, and it was in this thankfulness that Cerberus lived up to the reputation that dogs don't take things for granted.

But he was good to Dante. Another person may have mistaken that for a fake kind of friendliness, the kind of friendliness that imbues a conman's handshake as he feels through your wallet and steals a week's worth of wages. But the dog _was _good to him. Ever since Dante fed him the shish kabob meat, the dog waited nightly by Virgil's door for his return. Spoiling a dog, however, was worse than beating one. That was Virgil's philosophy, and Dante subscribed to it.

The magnetic field lines continued to swirl around the room as if they were in a cotton candy machine. Cerberus scratched on the door upstairs. Virgil grunted and then opened the door, mumbling something. The dog came downstairs, looked at Dante, scratched his ear with his hind leg, and then settled on the couch with a cathartic yawn.

Dante heard Virgil wheeze and then light another cigarette. He was a large man with weary eyes. Years of alcohol and nicotine had shredded his innards into mush, but he still had a nasty jab. It wasn't always like this, he'd said to Dante. And it was true. Dante had seen it himself. Trash didn't always line the curbs, and people still remembered how to smile. A long time ago, The Strange was a respectable place to live. Virgil ran a medium sized pub down the block. It was a cozy one-story tavern that used to be a grocery store. Green and white awning hung above a window with a mug of beer painted on it. The interior was wooden and dimly lit, and the smell of dry beer was everywhere. Bottles of every shape, size, and origin – France, Germany, Russia, among others – lined the shelves behind the bar. Waitresses smiled, patrons laughed, flies buzzed. On Friday nights, an occasional voice would rise above the chatter and shout, "Round o' beers on me!" and the bartender would get busy.

Virgil wore a three-piece suit to work when he was sober and a grey sweater when he wasn't. He drove a black Mazda for show and once buzzed his hair for a good laugh. He had been an important man with a loose entourage and some fair-weather friends that he kept around for fun. Dante's father was a regular at Virgil's bar, and the two men quickly grew to be buddies. When Dante was three, his father brought him to the bar and offered him a sip of vodka. He took a swig and vomited. The burly bodies around him laughed, and his father sent him on his way back home by himself.

On his way back, he passed the grey cemetery (the only cemetery in Academy City) and the equally grey penitentiary beside it. The old abandoned warehouses came next. The walls here were also drab, and Dante spotted people inside the building standing in a semi-circle around a tall man with red hair. It was the Big Spider gang. Dante squinted and saw nothing interesting. He shrugged and continued on his way. The color returned when he entered the residential area. He said hi to a few old folks sweeping their doorsteps. The neighborhood knew him as a good kid, and the kid knew it as a good neighborhood. The air was fresh, and the wind turbines turned in the distance.

Judgment began its crackdown on District 7 in November of 2005. Their official goal was to "suppress rampant gang activity", but Dante knew better. What motivated them was the same force behind hate crime or religious strife. Espers disliked non-espers. It was that simple. Dante remembered the raids. They were the last things he did remember before his memory crossfaded into a long stretch of nothingness. They started out small. A squad of five level-four espers would find an address that was given to them and go through the procedures that they read from their little handbooks. Early on, the squads gave warnings and ordered the gang members to come out. Most of them did. The ones who resisted were promptly paralyzed or burned or frozen. Some of them died, but no one in District 1 really cared. The higher ups there had bigger things to worry about. In response to the crackdown, many gangs joined forces and developed a warning system throughout the district. Whenever someone saw a uniformed squad enter The Strange, a call would be made to the underground gang centers. The gangs then escaped through back doors and dispersed throughout the district. By January, the squads began to take alternate routes to their destinations and raid only at nighttime. It was a horrible game of cat and mouse.

Virgil's bar remained busy until Judgment raided the gambling house across the street in late January. A week later, Judgment raided his bar and arrested two patrons. After that, people stop coming, and the bar closed down. Now, a dilapidated electronics store stood in its place. That bar was my baby, Virgil would say. He took a job as a clerk, but quit after a month. After that, he lived off of his savings, which wasn't much, but kept the collectors away. Yesterday, Dante offered to wire a billion yen into a bank account for him (using his electric abilities, of course). He refused and promptly poured himself another glass of bourbon.

Another wheeze from upstairs.

Dante put on his trench coat and yawned. The magnetic field lines had thinned out a bit, which meant the sun was setting. He lugged himself upstairs and found Virgil pouring himself another glass of wine at the kitchen counter.

"Leavin'?" he throated. Dante nodded and stepped for the door.

"You know," he started, "You know-" Virgil cut himself off mid-sentence and then smiled. He shook his head, chuckling to himself.

"What?"

"You know why your name's Dante?" he asked.

Dante told him he didn't.

"You may not 'member this, but you didn't get your name until you were six months old. See, your ma wanted to give you a Japanese name, and your pa wanted to give you an English name. So they let you decide. They named you after the very first words out of your mouth. Your ma kept saying Japanese to you, she did. Your pa did the same but with English names. One day, your pa brought you to the bar when you were only six months old. Not good parenting, yeah, I know, but what can you do, eh? Anyway, they brought you to my bar when you were six, and I remember that night. It was eight o'clock and it was blowing like a bitch outside, windy as all hell, and I took one look at you and I said to you, I said, 'dada'. And you scrunched up your little lips like sponges and said, 'Dante'. Oh, your father was laughing like a crazy man. He tossed you in the air and yelled, 'Dante! Dante!', and the crowd chanted with him. Hell, even I started saying it after the fifth or sixth time, you know? Then he bought a round for everyone. Damn, that was a good night, a good, good night. Outside was still windy. It started drizzling too, I think. Your pa came up afterward and actually shook my hand. He was on-his-ass drunk for sure, but he slurred out, 'He almost called you dada, Virgil. He likes you.' So he got me to promise to look after you if something happened. Well, something happened, and there you went. You were gone for five years, and when you came back, I was still here waiting. But I'm an old man now. I can't protect you, can't give you any advice except to be careful, can't help you besides that."

"You've done a lot for me, Virgil. I can thank you for that."

"My name sounds weird coming from you. You know, like a dog meowing. Anyway, you have something to do, and I can't stop you. Young souls are tough like that. I used to be one, believe it or not. Be careful, and don't be stupid. That's what I would've told myself, and that's what I'm telling you."

"And you. Will you be alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be alright. Don't worry about me. I got my thoughts to keep me company," he said, almost smiling.

Dante looked at his hands. They were old and hard. His fingers were yellow and far too large to thread a needle. He produced a phlegmy cough and sighed. Every single second that Virgil had experienced seem to aggregate in his eyes, which were like tarnished pennies. Dante wanted to take him away from that place. Grab his arm, shove him into a taxi, lock the doors, and drive him to another city, another country, anywhere but Academy City. But that would've been selfish. When the time came, Virgil just wanted to hold a book in his hands. It did make Dante sad, though, in a bittersweet kind of way. It can't be helped, he supposed.

"Don't get yourself killed," said Virgil.

And yourself, old man.

He turned and quietly closed the door behind him. That was the last time Dante saw him alive.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yeah, I probably should've wrote this a few chapters ago (the backstory and all), but oh well. I'm still learning how to structure a good story. It's winding down now, and I'm hoping to finish it by the time the second season finishes.**


	9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics

"_CASE 1551_

_Judgment 177 Branch_

_Date of occurrence: January 30, 2011_

_Date of report received: February 4, 2011_

_SUMMARY_

_2:50 a.m.: The propane tank in the basement of the 122__nd__ Judgment branch administrative building lost pressure, releasing flammable gas throughout the building._

_2:55 a.m.: The fire alarm activated, and the building was evacuated in approximately 7 minutes. Due to an electrical glitch, the fire department was not notified when the alarm was pulled. _

_3:05 a.m.: An explosion from the basement of the building ignited a fireball that quickly engulfed the floors above. The fire apartment was called at this time by one of the workers._

_3:08 a.m.: The perpetrator fought against Kamijō Tōma and Misaka Mikoto in front of the branch office. The perpetrator, named Dante, was able to overpower both students and steal Misaka Mikoto's esper abilities. _

_3:16 a.m.: The first fire response units arrived at the scene. No witnesses were found regarding Dante's whereabouts after the fight._

_4:23 a.m.: The fire department extinguished the fire. _

_Damage report: The building's steel frame held together, but a large volume of equipment was destroyed. Initial figures estimate four to five hundred million yen worth of damage. However, all 15 people inside the building evacuated safely; no one was injured."_

KONORI MII THANKED Kazari for the report and asked if there was anything else to add. Kazari, Kuroko, and Mikoto shook their heads in unison. Kazari handed the report to Mii, who placed it in a thin file labeled "Case 1551".

"And how are you feeling, Misaka-san?" asked Mii.

"Day by day," she replied.

"Good," said Mii. "We've confirmed that there were no additional witnesses at the incident. Judgment has already sent out a request to Tokiwadai to excuse you from all esper-related tasks."

Mikoto nodded solemnly.

"Misaka-san, Shirai-san, Uiharu-san," continued Mii, "I've said this before, but let me reiterate: everything that was said in here stays in here. If students start finding out that a man is running around Academy City with the third ranked esper's abilities, things will get _very _ugly_ very_ quickly."

Mikoto didn't like how much emphasis Mii placed on the two "very"s. It was as if whoever found out about it would go mad in panic and transmit the disease to someone else. And then that someone else would spread it to another person, and then so on and so forth ad infinitum until the entire world was infected with this information.

She grumbled.

"One last thing before we all break for the weekend," said Mii. "Any ideas on how powerful this Dante character is?"

"Well, we know that he's a level 5 at least," said Kazari.

"Maybe we can send Anti-Skill after him. Shoot some tear gas at him, bring out the .50 caliber rifles, bang, bang, and we're good. He probably doesn't even know how to use electricity that well," said Kuroko.

Mikoto pursed her lips and shook her head. Dante was skilled. _Much_ more skilled than she was as an electromaster. Five days ago, she witnessed him use her (or his) power only once when he discharged a bolt at Tōma before his jaw was shattered. It must've been about 10,000 volts; not enough to kill a man, but enough to paralyze him. Yet that steely sprig of lightning sprang so effortlessly from his fingertips, that she instantly knew how powerful he was. Somehow, she just knew.

"Guns won't work on him," said Mikoto. "He'll just magnetize the air around himself and deflect the bullets."

Mii nodded and pushed her glasses up against the bridge of her nose.

"Well, I can't think of anything except sending in the other level 5 espers, but that's too dangerous," said Mii. "I think we ought to play it safe for now. I'll send a message to my superiors to see if we can get a telepath to read his mind. We'll see what he has planned, and we'll act from there."

Kazari and Kuroko nodded. Mikoto was lost tracking a mote of dust in the far corner. It drifted out of focus.

"It there isn't anything else," said Mii, "then I believe this meeting is adjourned. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make a copy of this report for the archives."

Mii left the office and the three girls remained in their shared silence.

"Don't worry about it, Misaka-san," said Kazari. "It'll be fine!"

Mikoto said nothing. She didn't have the energy to. She felt drained ever since the fight. It was a combination of her vulnerability and her anxiety. Everything looked different without her powers. She had grown so used to the field lines that not being able to see them was a handicap. The world seemed incomplete and unpredictable without the magnetism guiding her like contour lines on a map. Cars swished by her in their abruptness, refusing to warn her with any electrical pulses as they once had. No longer could she walk through downtown Academy City at night without fear. She wouldn't be able to fight off even one man let alone a gang. She was naked without her powers, and that nakedness carved at her sanity like a dull blade.

The anxiety was worse. Watching, thinking about Dante using her powers, Mikoto felt as if she were abetting his crimes. Every volt of electrical potential that coursed through his blood had once been hers to command, and now he had ripped it away from her flesh. Visions of Dante electrocuting students invaded her thoughts, and Mikoto tried to ignore them without success. She almost wished she never existed.

"Are you okay, Onee-sama?" asked Kuroko. A cold, painful lump sat in the pit of Mikoto's stomach like a stone. She felt like vomiting.

"It's my fault, isn't it?" said Mikoto. Kuroko rolled her eyes and slung an arm across her shoulders.

"Sheesh, Onee-sama," said Kuroko. "First of all, it's not your fault. It's not like you're pulling the trigger, right? And second of all, no one's died. Alright, so a building's burned down. So what? That can be replaced, and when we catch this Dante person, we're gonna have him rebuild it with only his bare hands as punishment. After that, we'll send him back to District 10 where he belongs, and he'll rot in jail there until we send him to the electric chair. You can even do the honors."

Mikoto looked away and released an uneasy breath. "I need to be alone for a bit," she said. She bolted out of the conference room, and the door eased shut behind her. Kuroko and Kazari looked at each other and shrugged.

Mikoto sped down the hallway, almost tripping over herself, and exited the Judgment 177 Branch Office. She crossed the road and traversed the quad to her dorm. In her room, Mikoto yanked her mobile from its charger and punched in Tōma's number. She hadn't stored it in her phonebook for fear that Kuroko might snoop through her recent calls. She pressed the phone against the side of her head like a pillow and listened to the steady ring on the other side. Her limbs felt distant and detached, and the phone seemed so heavy that she almost dropped it. Her stomach twisted into a knot and threatened to shove its contents up her esophagus. She almost began to cry until finally the voice of Tōma made its way to her ear through a mesh of static.

"Biribiri?"

"Tōma," she exhaled, her voice quivering. "I need you right now."

TŌMA REVIEWED THE CHAPTER on entropy as he whistled a familiar tune to himself. Outside the library, the sun rode the clouds past its zenith and prepared to descend into its nightly grave. Hordes of students had crammed into the library today to prepare for their midterms. Tōma sat on the second floor of an attachment to the library called "the hyphen". It housed shelves of old books that no one ever borrowed. The collection itself was named after some important bigwig that donated those books to the library. The place was hidden behind a maze of corridors, so rarely anyone studied there. Today, the place was empty except for him.

Tōma rubbed his neck and looked around. The walls were taupe and made of foam that absorbed stray sounds quite well. Beams of ghostly light poured in from the thin windows and highlighted the dust that wafted through the room. A gust brushed against the outer walls, and the windows shuddered. It must've been below zero outside, but inside, it was toasty.

Tōma returned to his textbook and squinted at the words on the page, which had long ago conglomerated into blocks of blurred letters. Science exams were the worst. Academy City's curriculum in the winter featured the six courses with the lowest medians in the entire catalogue: Electricity and Magnetism, Organic Chemistry I, Genetics, Advanced Telekinesis, Introduction to Pyrokinesis, and Introduction to Teleportation. Tōma just happened to be enrolled in the toughest one out of those six, Electricity and Magnetism. Historically, the median for that course was a C. Tōma buried his head in the pages of his textbook and groaned. If I could get a B, he thought, I would be happy.

He felt a firm nudge on his shoulder. A wave of amber hair brushed his face as he turned around to see who it was.

"Found you," said Mikoto as she settled in the seat next to him. "I was looking for you for five minutes. Jeez."

"Oh, you made it," said Tōma. He stretched out and yawned. "Well, you were the one who told me to wait for you in the hyphen. No one ever comes here, so it's not my fault you couldn't find me right away."

"Jerk." Her voice was weak, and its echoes were quickly absorbed by the foam walls.

"How's it going?" asked Tōma.

"It's going," she replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm not feeling as good as I could be feeling."

"Speak up, Mikoto. No one's around. I promise."

Mikoto sighed and anchored her chin on her chest. Her fingers rubbed and pinched one another.

"I said, 'I'm not feeling that good'," she repeated.

"Will you feel better if I hug you?"

"I don't know."

Tōma hugged her. Head beside her ear, Tōma whispered, "Do you feel better?"

"A bit, I guess," she said.

Tōma leaned back and cupped her shoulders with his hands. "Mikoto," he said, "I want to know if you're alright."

Mikoto said nothing. She gently lifted Tōma's right hand from her shoulder and placed it on her cheek. She leaned her head on his palm and smiled for the first time three days. Her skin felt warm against his. The windows rattled from the wind outside. She closed her eyes. Another gust slammed against the walls, and the building creaked.

"What are you studying?" she asked.

Tōma glanced back at his textbook to remind himself of what he'd learned only a few minutes ago. "Physics. I'm studying physics."

"I know that, dummy. Which chapter?"

He peeked again at the pages and spotted the word "entropy" in bold and size 24 Helvetica.

"Entropy," he read.

"Oh, the second law of thermodynamics," she said as she nestled her cheek further into his hand. "Do you remember what the law states?"

"Probably something to do with molecules and how organized they are," he managed. "The universe … uhhh…"

"…tends towards disorder," finished Mikoto.

"Uh… yeah. I didn't really read through the chapter," he admitted.

"The universe tends towards disorder. That means everything is fated to go to its lowest energy state and disintegrate. The clouds, the stars, your hand. All of it will fall apart until the universe is a uniform soup. Kind of creepy, don't you think?"

"I try to, but it never really works out."

"What?"

"You asked me, 'don't you think'," said Tōma. "I'm telling you that it doesn't work for me."

"Then let's stop thinking."

Mikoto lifted her head. Her eyes were glassy, and the pink tint that used to occupy her cheeks had dissolved. She looked so delicate that one misspoken word would shatter her. Yet Tōma found a kind of girlish charm in her daintiness that had been buried beneath her façade for so long. She needed someone to lean on, someone to tell her that it would all be alright even if it wouldn't be. In her vulnerability, she looked more comely. She was like the Venus de Milo and her missing arms; she was no longer an electromaster, but it was that same lack of power that lent her a new sort of beauty, a projection of what _could've been_. The flush from her face had gone, but her lips were still red, and between the lub-dubs in his chest, Tōma found the right moment to kiss her. As their lips met, something thumped from the deepest chambers of his being. She was powerless now, and he wanted – needed – to be her protector. He regained his breath and kissed her one more time.

"People might see us," she whispered.

"I hope they do," he said. Her heartbeat pulsed through her tongue and synced with his own. "But you know, we can't really be an official couple until Kuroko finds out."

Mikoto pulled back and frowned. "I suppose so. When are you going to tell her then?"

Tōma widened his eyes and squeaked out a nervous laugh. "Eh…. Not me. I'm sure as hell not doing it. She's a hurricane. You're her roommate, so why don't you tell her?"

"Wait a sec. Did you hear that?" asked Mikoto, pushing Tōma away.

He shook his head. Mikoto's eyes darted around the room. "I think someone's coming in."

"I think it was just the wind—"

And then the 13 year old girl, the one with rosy pigtails that drooped to her shoulders, the Teleporter working for Judgment, the queen of brashness and bad manners whose name was Shirai Kuroko, unleashed a scream so deafening that the windows almost shattered.

"ON. EE. SA. MAAAA~~~!"

The girl disappeared and then reappeared above Tōma and a draft of cool air followed. Her foot crashed into his head, and he hit the floor with a loud _thump_.

"Damn, that hurt!" yelled Tōma as he rubbed the back of his head.

She clenched her fists and scrunched her face into an ugly knot. Her small frame stood redoubtably over Tōma. "So you're not satisfied with the anguish you've already caused Onee-sama?

Tōma ignored what the crazy girl just asked. "Damn, that _really _hurt."

Kuroko's body language cursed at him.

"Spawn of Satan, did you hear what I said?"

"Yeah, I heard what you said, and I plead the fifth."

Kuroko smacked him on the side of the head and Tōma tasted the floor for the second time. "We're not in America, dumbass!"

Mikoto tugged on Kuroko's shoulder. "Calm down, Kuroko."

"Onee-sama," she blurted, "did this man hurt you? Did he threaten you? Touch you even? I'll return his wrongdoings tenfold!"

It was amazing how cleanly Kuroko could switch between hostility and compassion.

"I'm okay," said Mikoto, "but how did you find me in the hyphen of all places?"

"Well, that's…"

"You followed me, didn't you?"

"I had to make sure you were safe! If some dirty scoundrel such as this man accosted you, you would have no way of protecting yourself!"

Tōma rubbed the second throbbing bump on his head. Kuroko had a strong hook. "Mikoto can protect hers—"

Kuroko smacked him for the third time. "Don't call her Mikoto, you garbage-eating, snot-twizzling spacker!"

"Kuroko!" shouted Mikoto, "That's enough!"

Another point of pain pulsed on Tōma's head. He sat up and massaged his scalp. That one didn't hurt as much, probably because he was numb all over his upper body from the first two hits.

"Sorry, Onee-sama. I might have overreacted a bit there."

"Yeah, you definitely overreacted," said Tōma.

Kuroko glared at him and squeezed her fist. Tōma flinched. He held up his hands in front of him and tried pathetically to disarm her with a nervous smile. "Eh… well, I think I'm entitled to my opinion."

"True," said Kuroko, "but that doesn't mean that _I'm_ entitled to your opinion. The Ace of Tokiwadai lost her abilities because you, and now, some villain is going around and burning buildings. If anyone dies because of him, you better feel responsible, Kamijō Tōma. Once I've beaten and arrested this man, you're next."

"So should I be cheering for this guy then?"

Kuroko pulled a dart from her thigh in one automatic action and made it disappear like a magician. The dart reappeared in Tōma's shirt and tagged him to the wall.

"Do it and you'll be tasting my unadulterated fury."

"Damned if I do, damned if I don't," muttered Tōma.

"What was that?"

Kuroko had another dart in between her fingers. Tōma hadn't even seen her reach for one. Mikoto stepped in and plucked the dart away. "Kuroko, you're right. I think we better go back to the dorm."

"Oh, we could," said Kuroko, turning to her, "if you answer a question I've had on my mind."

"What is it?"

"Just why were you and this man together at three in the morning last Saturday?

Tōma's eyes widened. The room seemed to shrink. The pain in his head was muffled in the presence of a coming wave of claustrophobia. He stared at Mikoto and wondered if she would spill the beans right then and there. He imagined Kuroko receiving the news that they were a couple and her pulling the rest of the darts out of the holster on her thigh and teleporting them into his non-vital organs. Non-vital so that he didn't die right away. He could almost feel the cold, metallic pain in his body as if someone had inserted a blowtorch in there. It would be a slow and agonizing death. What misfortune.

"Kuroko, listen very carefully. What I'm about to tell you is the truth. We were—"

Oh no. I don't want to die just yet, thought Tōma. He sprang from the floor and the dart ripped a patch of fabric from his shirt. His right hand extended forward. His fingers sliced through the air and landed around Kuroko's wrist. She couldn't use her powers now.

"—studying!" shouted Tōma. "We were studying!"

"What the– Get off of me!"

Kuroko thrashed her arm like a whip, but Tōma held steady.

"We were studying the second law of thermodynamics. Look, I can even prove it to you: The second law of thermodynamics says that the universe tends to organize itself! See?"

"Do you think I'm an idiot? Also, you got it completely wrong!"

"Okay, I was lying. The truth is that Misaka-san and I are dating."

_...Misaka-san and I are dating._

Not even the soundproof walls could absorb those words.

Kuroko stiffened. Tōma felt the heat drain from her arm. Her eyes looked like they were going to pop out of their sockets. She shuddered.

"O…o…onee-s…sama. Is this true?"

Mikoto's face was as red as a thousand degrees. "It's true."

Kuroko gasped in one last breath before she tilted back and landed supine on the floor.

Tōma stood up and brushed himself off. The pain in his head began to whine again. He tapped Kuroko twice on the cheek. No response.

"Well, at least she knows now," said Mikoto.

"Yep, and you should tell the coroner to look for darts in my body when he performs the autopsy. Save him some time."

Tōma lifted Kuroko onto his back fireman style and carried her down the stairs and out the backdoor, where fewer people would see him. Mikoto followed. They received a few perplexed stares as they crossed the quad and back to Mikoto's dorm, but most of the students were inside avoiding the cold. Along the way, Tōma cycled through two lingering thoughts. The first one was about how Kuroko would react when she came to. He guessed that she would either lodge a dart in his brain and turn him into a vegetable or lodge a dart in his heart and kill him outright.

The second thought was about the second law of thermodynamics. The universe tended towards disorder; the fate of everything from black holes to specks of dust alike was chaos. Anarchy was the endpoint. Shit was inevitably going to hit the fan.

Sometimes, physics had a strange way of making sense.


	10. Coulomb's Law

ELECTROMASTERS CANNOT TECHNICALLY shoot electricity. Electricity is not a projectile. Electricity is simply the flow of electrons from an area of high electrical potential to an area of low electrical potential. Imagine a ball rolling down a hill. When the ball reaches the ground, how fast it's ultimately travelling depends on the height it descended from. A ball dropped from a skyscraper will have much greater velocity than a ball dropped from a ten-foot ladder when it hits the ground. In classical electromagnetism, the ball is an electron, and the height is voltage. The greater the voltage gap an electron traverses, the more energy it'll have.

Unlike the ball however, an electron cannot be projected at a distant target. The main reason is that air is not a good conductor of electricity. However, if a large enough potential difference (and charge imbalance) exists between the source of electricity and the target, the electrons will "leap" to the area of low potential in an electrostatic discharge. This is the principle behind lightning.

The challenge is to create the potential difference for the electrons to flow through. This is where dark energy comes in. Electromasters use dark energy as a power source to generate an area of low electrical potential at a distant target. When this potential difference exists, the laws of physics can take care of the rest. Electrons will naturally flow to the area of low electrical potential (overcoming any insulators) and deposit their excess energy on their target in an electrostatic discharge.

Although dark energy is integral in wielding esper-related abilities, how it actually works is still a mystery. Labs all over the world are currently researching dark energy in hopes of harnessing it to solve the global energy crisis.

FEBRUARY MARKED THE end of the coldest part of winter. The skies were still grey, but longer days and shorter nights had softened the snow and thawed the ice. Meltwater trickled through the gutters and eventually ended up in the reservoirs in District 21. The prospect of an early growing season appealed to the seedlings that had yet to germinate from the sated soil. Mercury in the thermometers that hung in windows bobbed above and below the red line at 0ºC and foreshadowed an imminent end to the cold snap that struck the Tokyo region just days before.

A light drizzle fell on Academy City today and washed away the dirty layer of snow that had accumulated on the sidewalks. Even though it was wet, Greater Academy City was as busy as ever. Seen from above, the umbrellas looked like beads that jiggled and joggled by each other in harried motions. The raindrops clapped on the nylon like drums and produced a steady pattering that filled the streets.

Dante sat with his back against a restaurant dumpster and let the drizzle run down his face. These alleys branched through all of downtown Academy City, and they all smelled like rotting meat. Every one of them. And it became near unbearable when it was raining. At least the snow covered up some of the smell; the water marinated the garbage and spawned a scent as putrid as a septic tank. Dante hugged himself and breathed into his shirt to filter the smell. He rolled down his eyes and tried to drift into an impossible sleep.

Thoughts of his mother danced in his head, her staunch face and old hands eroded by age and activity. She carried 60 years of experience in a 30 year old's body. She spoke in adages and worked in solitude. She waited for him every day in the same room with the same red bowl full of the same oatmeal and cinnamon that he would gobble up without grace. He never did get to thank her for that. She made him write a 500 character essay every day of the week. He initially hated her for that, but grew to accept it and then to embrace it. It was only a week ago that he learned from Virgil that his mother never learned how to read or write.

He remembered his father and his devilish yet comforting smile, the one that all fathers seem to have perfected. He was a world class liar when it came to explaining things. The first movie Dante ever saw was _It's a Wonderful Life_, and his father made him believe that a live action movie was merely a really well-drawn animation. He told him that the sun was a cherry and the moon, a grape, but also the real explanation behind some things. After all, the most convincing lies have a grain of truth in them.

Lastly, he recalled his two older brothers, both of whom called him Dan-chan, a name that he hated. They teased him like old brothers should, but they stood up for him like old brothers should. Dante had barely begun to love them before they died.

A stream of rain struck his head, and he jolted back to attention. It _hurt_.

It felt like the single droplet of water split open his skull and continued to drill its way down his brain. His jaw went numb. Dante clenched his eyes shut. The pain radiated through his neck and into his chest. _Here it goes again._ The fire sizzled down his sides and reached his feet. Flakes of skin peeled off and disappeared. The rain minced his flesh and bore through his bone. Decades ago, physicians described a condition called cluster headaches. Onset of the headaches is rapid, and they may last from minutes up to hours. Patients describe the sensation as having a red-hot poker shoved through their eyes and through the top of their craniums. The condition is also called "suicide headaches", because so many of the sufferers kill themselves. Investigators who studied this condition wrote that a cluster headache was the worst pain that a human could feel; worse than passing a kidney stone, worse than giving birth. They must not have known about Dante's condition.

Then the pain dissolved. Odd. The scorching sensation receded back to Dante's head and then vanished in a single point on his nose. He breathed in short rasps as he regained his senses. He eased his eyes ajar and wiped off the coat of sweat and rain that slicked his eyelids. The scent of dirty fur entered his nose before he saw the tongue against his face. The bright spots of light cleared from his vision, and a German shepherd sat before him.

"Oh, Cerberus."

The dog licked his chops and leaned in. Dante placed his hand between the dog's ears and scratched his head. He was shivering. Water ran down his saturated fur and merged into a small stream on the concrete. Lightning flashed and thunder followed.

Dante peeled off his coat and wrapped it around the dog, who shuddered as the cold moisture pressed against his skin.

"I had a feeling you'd find me, so I got this for you," he said as he pulled a package wrapped in paper from his pocket. "Take it as a thank you gift."

Cerberus's head perked up as Dante unwrapped a steak and threw it on the ground. The dog sniffed it and then began to chew on it slowly as to savor the taste. Dante squatted beside him to watch. Cerberus casually glanced up at him and then resumed eating.

"So how's the steak?" asked Dante. The Alsatian ignored him.

"Good. I was hoping you'd say that."

Dante whisked his hair back and settled cross-legged on the ground. Dark circles of moisture dotted his grey undershirt.

"I once watched a movie with my dad. It was an old, black-and-white picture about a detective trying to solve a mystery. You know, your typical noir film. In one part, the detective says something like, 'If I ever catch him, I'll make sure he gets a death sentence.' I'd never heard of a death sentence before, so I asked my father what it was. He said that it was a sentence that an executioner whispered to a criminal to kill him. Then I asked him if he knew what the words were, and he said that he did, and that if I ever misbehaved, he would whisper it to me in my sleep. Shit, I was so scared after that, and he knew it. He assigned me a ton of chores, and I did them. It was either comply or die. Hah! That bastard! After two weeks, I went up to him as he was watching TV and asked him if he was really going to kill me if I misbehaved. My mom overheard from the other side of the room and asked me what the hell was going on. I explained, and they both had a good laugh. My dad told me that he made everything up. And hell, I was more relieved than angry."

Cerberus continued to nibble at the meat. The rain grew colder and heavier. Dante ionized the air around him to keep warm.

"After that, I trusted my mom. She was my sieve for the bullshit that my dad spewed out. The death sentence incident proved that she wasn't a liar. So a few months later when she confirmed that Santa Claus existed, I was totally convinced. I remember I only wanted a few science textbooks that year and never getting them. Must've broken their hearts when they saw it and realized they wouldn't be able to afford them.

"You know how I figured out there was no Santa Claus? I saw the Christmas commercials on TV. He'd always slide down the chimney, eat the cookies, drink the milk, fill the stocking, and then leave an assload of gifts under the Christmas tree. Took his sweet time. And all the while, I was yelling, 'Go faster, old man! You've got other children waiting for you!' Then I realized that no way in hell was he going to make it to every kid in just one night. I even did the calculations. Santa's payload would've weighed around 350,000 tons, and he would've needed a quarter million reindeer to pull it all. Then I figured out that if was going to drop off gifts at every house, he'd need to travel at ten times the speed of sound. With that speed and mass, he'd experience 14 quintillion joules of energy per inch per second. That's like having 250,000 Hiroshima bombs going off in every nook and cranny of his body. Not kidding."

Cerberus glanced up, snorted, and then went back to his now half-eaten steak.

"By the time I started high school, I thought I had my parents' tricks all sorted out. But now I realize they had one last great lie for me to debunk, and it's this: that if I believed in myself, my vision, my principles, that if I had perseverance, I would be destined for greatness. Everything would work out in the end.

"What a joke. It was the biggest lie, and it took me the longest to figure out. Mother always told me that if I wanted to be a politician, I'd become the president; if I wanted to be a businessman, I'd become a CEO. Well, I wanted to be an esper. So I studied and trained, drank sweat and pissed blood, and look where I am now."

Dante craned his neck upward and watched the rain pelt his skin and evaporate instantly from the energy field. Cerberus swallowed the last bit of the meat and licked his gums. Dante extended a hand and stroked his head.

"But this isn't so bad, is it?"

Dante rose up and rubbed a crick that had developed on the back of his neck. He uncoiled the coat from the dog's body and slipped it back on himself. It smelled terrible but still better than the garbage.

"C'mon, boy. I'll drop you off back home. It's a short walk."

Cerberus thrashed off the loose pockets of water in his fur and followed Dante along the torturous back alleys. The ground grew grimier in a morose gradient as they neared The Strange. The first rain of the season had washed forth all the filth that had been locked away in the snow and soil, in District 10, that is. The rest of Academy City was pristine. Cleaning robots scooted around all day, literally, all day to scrub, sweep, and sanitize. It was one big cleanroom.

The familiar welcome signs of District 10 took the form of faded graffiti and dilapidated buildings. Patches of dead, strawy grass ran along the base of a chain link fence that had long been cut open. They were getting their first glimpses of the sky after a long but expected winter.

Dante rounded the corner where a run-down convenience store sulked in its better memories. In front of an apartment, he saw four men in blue uniforms and transparent ponchos next to an ambulance. Dante paused in his tracks and slid back around the corner. One of the men lit a cigarette and took a drag. Another guffawed at some unheard joke that was scattered in the sheets of rain coming down. He waited. After a while, the four of them turned to their heads at the same time. Two EMTs carried a body bag on a stretcher out of the doors and loaded it into the back of the vehicle. Dante's eyes widened, and his jaw fell slack. Cerberus looked at him curiously and whimpered. He seemed to know just as well as Dante that Virgil was dead. They had been looking for _him_, but instead, they found only an old man reading a book. They must've interrogated him, and through the thick film of mucus and tar in his lungs, he gurgled out a string of negative responses. He probably sat in his antique chair and smiled as Anti-Skill decided what to do with him. One of them probably unholstered his sidearm and threatened Virgil one more time before he gave the final "no". One shot to the head was probably all it took. He slumped back, and his arms plopped soundlessly on the table. The book was opened three-quarters of the way. That was the biggest tragedy; Virgil never got to finish what he started. Not the book, not his bar, not his life.

Dante turned to Cerberus and sighed. Virgil wouldn't have wanted him to pity him, so he didn't. But he couldn't help thinking how much of a damned shame it was.

Rain fell, lightning flashed, thunder followed.

"It's getting dark now," he said to Cerberus.

The dog nodded as if to agree, but it was only a consequence of his head oscillating up and down with his breaths. Dante scratched him on the head once more and walked towards the direction from whence they came. His body felt airy and spry, as if gravity itself had lightened. Cerberus watched as he disappeared past the beaded wall of water. The dog couldn't decide whether to stay or to follow.

Not far away, the engine of the ambulance purred to life, and the sound of rubber tires grinding on loose asphalt signaled Virgil's first departure from District 10 in five years. The rain showed no signs of letting up.

He decided to follow.


	11. The Third Law of Thermodynamics

TESTING DAY FINALLY ARRIVED. Almost a million students walked in for their exams on the March 3rd. Collectively, more than four million liters of coffee were drunk, and almost twenty million hours were spent studying. District 7 was on edge. The espers at Tokiwadai were particularly nervous. News of the ability borrower had spread among the studentry. Having been exempt from the standard esper examinations, the Ace of Tokiwadai was able to hide the truth from the rest of the class.

Tōma waited in his seat and watched Tsukuyomi Komoe fiddle with her thumbs. A thick packet of paper that was to be his physics examination lay face down on his desk. Outside, water seeped down the roof and dripped, dripped, dripped onto the pavement. Besides that, it was quiet. The clock struck noon, and Komoe announced that they could begin.

Tōma flipped over the exam and scribbled his name on each page. His actions were automatic; he'd done this a hundred times on the practice tests.

Inhale. Exhale.

First question. _State the second law of thermodynamics._ Okay, no problem. Write: No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature. Easy.

Tōma looked around. Pencils weaved furiously around him. They were all still on the first problem. He smirked and moved on.

Second question. _A generator uses a heat engine operating between two heat reservoirs, one consisting of steam 100ºC, and the other of water at 20ºC. What is the maximum amount of energy that can be produced for every joule of heat extracted from the steam?_

Tōma cracked his knuckles, licked his teeth, and hoped that his neuronal connections were strong enough to earn him a decent grade.

MEANWHILE, FROM THE TOKIWADAI DORMS, a constant droning could be heard from a certain scientific railgun's room.

"Misaka-san and I are dating … Misaka-san and I are dating … Misaka-san and I are dating…"

Mikoto flipped through a magazine as Kuroko watched from her bed beneath nine tenths of a coma.

"Misaka-san and I are dating …. Misaka-san and I are dating…" A bead of drool hung from the corner of her mouth.

"Kuroko," said Mikoto, "you've been saying that since you woke up three hours ago."

Kuroko snapped to attention. "This is serious, Onee-sama," she babbled. "You dating is like me sitting still. It's just uncharacteristic!"

"Sheesh, Kuroko. It's normal for girls to be dating at this age."

"Yeah, but not with someone like _him_!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he's lazy, he's arrogant, and he's got a face made for radio. He's not your type. Definitely not your type."

"Okay. Then what _is _my type if you know me so well?"

Kuroko thought for a moment and then fixed her pigtails. "Someone proactive. Energetic. Devoted. And definitely an esper. Not too weak, though, but not a level 5 either." Her subsequent smile was so saccharine that Mikoto could taste it in on her tongue.

"Let me guess," she said. "You're talking about you."

"Well… coincidentally, that description _does _match my profile."

"It's about as coincidental as a sunrise."

"Don't be that way, Onee-sama. I think you owe me that much for hiding the truth from me."

"Well, I suppose I should've told you sooner."

"See, Onee-sama? Isn't it nice to tell the truth? We don't have to keep secrets between us. Honesty is good."

Mikoto raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Like that time you didn't tell me that you were secretly stashing away pictures of me and planning to drug me with an aphrodisiac?"

"Eh…," Kuroko mustered.

"Or did you forget about that time that you stalked me under the pretense of protecting me from 'someone watching'?"

"That's…"

Mikoto clenched her fists and formed an angry smile. If she had her powers, there would've been a thunderstorm inside the building. She savored a breaths and eased her fists open.

"Relax, Mikoto, relax," she told herself. "All this stress, Kuroko. You keep this up, and I'm going to die of a heart attack by age 20."

"You wouldn't die even if someone killed you. This I know."

Mikoto sighed, and the weight of a week's worth of fatigue evaporated from her shoulders. "Say, Kuroko. What say you and I catch a film tonight?"

Kuroko's eyes shimmered. "O-O-Onee-sama…. Are you serious?"

Mikoto smiled and nodded. "Just us two. But no weird stuff from you, or else it's off. Misguided as you are, I think you're right about honesty. I should've told you about Tōma earlier. This'll be my way of making it up to you."

"Onee-sama, you are the wind beneath my wings!" exclaimed the teleporter as she wrapped herself around the railgun.

"Hey, there…. Just try go easy on Tōma the next time you see him."

"I can't promise that I'll try," grinned Kuroko, "but I'll try to try."

"Fair enough," said Mikoto. "Now if you'll just let me go, I have to–"

A loud ringing interrupted her sentence.

"Whoops! That's mine," said Kuroko. She snatched the phone from her desk and scanned the screen for the caller. "Duty calls, Onee-sama."

"A message from Judgment?"

"Correct. And they want you to come to the office too."

"I suppose it's something important."

Kuroko nodded at Mikoto, and together, they headed for the branch office.

HALFWAY THROUGH THE EXAM, a most untimely episode of drowsiness passed through Tōma. He had only slept for three hours last night to cram in the section on basic statistical mechanics. His eyelids seemed to grow heavier by the second. Letters on the page pixelated into blocks of ink. He let out a mighty yawn and rubbed his eyes. The next question momentarily revealed itself to him.

Question 7: Multiple choice.

_The third law of thermodynamics relates mainly to:_

_a) Absolute zero_

_b) Thermal equilibrium_

_c) Entropy_

_d) Conservation of energy_

The words slipped in and out of focus. Tōma blinked twice and then massaged his temples. The room was toasty, and his chair was comfortable. More and more, the packet of white paper resembled a pillow. Even feathery stuffing seemed to pop out from the fringes. This is bad, thought Tōma as he lowered his head and sunk into darkness.

He woke up in a place unlike a classroom. It was a giant, damp chamber. Stone pillars protruded from the ground and carried torches on them. Outside, past the double wooden doors, what sounded like a hurricane churned about. The words "medieval" and "ancient" crossed Tōma's mind. The only thing missing from this place was a row of armored knights carrying spears and poleaxes. From the shadows, a firm voice said, "Back so soon?"

Tōma stood up and inspected his surroundings. He squinted his eyes, and single lanky figure extricated itself from the background and approached him. Tōma took a lungful of air and then exhaled. "Are you the keeper?"

"I preferred to be called Dante," he replied. A roll of thunder cracked outside, and the columns rumbled in response. "How's the exam going?"

"Exam?"

"You know…. Your physics midterm."

"Oh," slipped Tōma, "It's going well I think."

"Apparently not. You're asleep, and there's not even an hour remaining."

"Seriously?"

Dante nodded solemnly. "If it makes you feel better, at least now you know that the third law of thermodynamics has to do with absolute zero."

"What misfortune," said Tōma, shaking his head. "Can I wake up?"

"How's Misaka-san?" asked Dante, ignoring the question.

"None of your business. Now will you let me leave? I have a test to finish bombing."

"Hey, you're the one who fell asleep in the first place. I didn't invite you here. Either way, I'm not sure how I go about waking you up."

"You're lying. I remember being here before, and I remember leaving this place."

"Ah, you're right," conceded Dante. "I remember now. You woke up when you died."

Tōma furrowed his brows and scoffed. "What misfortune. Go ahead and wake me up then."

Dante stretched out his hand, and branches of electricity coursed from his fingers. "Ready?"

Tōma nodded. Dante raised his hand, and the blue streams of energy followed. "When you're done with the test, find Misaka-san. She'll know where to go."

His arm swung down like an executioner's axe in one grim motion, and a salvo of lightning surged at Tōma. He braced himself. Everything went white.

A high-pitched voice woke him up for the second time. "…remaining," it said. Something remaining. Tōma glanced at the clock. The heavy weight of desperation sunk down from his throat to his gut to his groin. _Oh no_, he groaned. _Twenty minutes remaining_. His body flung itself to attention, and Tōma began to write. The third law of thermodynamics? That's absolute zero. The answer seemed to flow without resistance.

He turned the page and found a blurb on Maxwell's equations. This was Tōma's weakest section, but the question was forgiving. He visualized the problem in his head, and the geometries and manifolds of his visualization came to him in a flash of intuition. _It made sense_. Somehow, all the numbers and symbols linked in harmony and produced a beautiful result. This must have been what Newton felt when the apple landed on his head, thought Tōma.

The next four problems were equally simple, and he worked through them without a hitch. He was positive that he'd gotten them all correct.

Outside, meltwater dripped, dripped and dripped some more. "Three minutes remaining."

He flipped back through the pages and caught several glaring errors in his arithmetic. After some quick bandaging, all of his answers were waterproof. No doubt, he had a perfect paper in his hand. Around him, swarms of students continued to scribble frantically to get their last guesses in. Tōma stood up out of his chair, and two dozen heads turned at once. He shuffled to the Komoe's desk and handed her his exam. The pink-haired woman shot him a perplexed look. The questions were designed so that they could not be finished within the allotted time. No one had handed in an early exam for this course since its inception and gotten a passing grade.

"Are you sure you're done?" asked Komoe. Tōma nodded and went back to his desk. He packed up his belongings and left the room just as time expired. He had somewhere to be.

THINGS MUST MOVE. This notion is perhaps best embodied in the third law of thermodynamics. Stated briefly, the third law of thermodynamics says that: the entropy of a substance approaches zero as its temperature approaches absolute zero. To understand why this is, one must understand both what absolute zero is and what entropy is.

Absolute zero is simply a temperature at -273.15ºC. At this temperature, particles cease to move. No motion is allowed. Not even an atomic-scale picometer shudder. An implication of the third law of thermodynamics is that one can never reach absolute zero. An easy way to think about this is this: in order for object A to reach absolute zero, one would require an object colder than absolute zero, object B, to transfer heat away from object A. Since no temperature can be colder than absolute zero, object B cannot exist, and absolute zero can never be reached.

Another way to think about this is in terms of entropy. Entropy is defined as:

S = -_k_B ln Ω

Where

S = entropy

kB = Boltzmann's constant

Ω = the number of microstates that a system may be in.

A microstate is a possible unique configuration of all the atoms in a system. At absolute zero, the system is in a perfect crystalline structure, so only one microstate exists. This brings the ln Ω term to zero and thus, at absolute zero, entropy is zero. However, since atoms always vibrate (due to transient attractive forces between each other known as Van der Waals forces), more than one microstate must exist, and entropy cannot be zero. Furthermore, if an atom were in complete stasis, both its position and velocity would be known. This violates another famous principle called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that both the exact position and momentum of a particle can _never _be known.

Things must move. The nature of objects, be it on a macroscopic or microscopic scale, is to move. No matter how perfectly still objects may seem or want to be, they are always active. Neither the laws of physics nor the will of God can convince them to stop. Birds fly, blood flows, minds think, wind blows. One can try to seek peace from motion, but take it from the third law of thermodynamics: it's impossible.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Well, it looks like I might not be able to finish by the end of the 2nd season after all. School, you know. But don't lose hope if I don't update in a while!


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